


Mindtrapped

by FandomsUnite17



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: GT, Self-Harm, Size Difference, basically this whole fic is a wild ride from start to finish and people are hurt so I warned you
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:26:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 24,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25343905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FandomsUnite17/pseuds/FandomsUnite17
Summary: Thomas is on his way to the destination of a well-needed vacation and unfortunately, he is being accompanied during the ride by a very concerned Virgil and way-too-excited Remus. Try as he might, he can't get them to shut their mouths for five minutes and just let him concentrate on the trip! Finally, he snaps and turns away from the road to shout at them.What happens to someone who's simply a figment of imagination when their host is sent into a coma? And more importantly, what is this place the sides have woken up in? And what happened to their powers?
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	1. 911

Thomas was forty minutes into his two hour drive to Daytona Beach, where he'd be staying for a well needed, if not modest, vacation, and already he regretted it. It was Virgil and The Duke who were to blame. Not only would they not leave him alone, they wouldn't leave each other alone either. And, much to The Duke's pleasure, he was beginning to wonder if driving himself into oncoming traffic would be a better alternative to these two… But he hadn't meant to actually do it…  
"Thomas, you'll be staying in a hotel, will you not?"  
"Uh, yeah? So?"  
"So?!" Remus let out a laugh. "Oh, Thomas. What are hotels for?"  
"Sleeping? Watching cartoons if you pay for a nice one?"  
He sighed amidst another laugh. "Ah, Thomas, you have got to stop ignoring these things! Hotels are for sex! Rape! Eh, occasional murder if you're feeling particularly… horny."  
"That…" Virgil groaned. "That has nothing to do with why hotels are a bad idea… But they are a bad idea…"  
"Uh-huh…" Thomas was getting aggravated again. Or rather, he was getting pissed off. Couldn't they just shut up and let him concentrate on driving?!  
"Especially if you don't have a really nice one…"  
"Virgil, I do have a really nice hotel. That's why this is called a vacation."  
"But what if it's not as nice as you think it is? Or, what if it is exactly as nice as you think it is and you get killed anyway?!"  
"O-Okay, when - when did we ever mention getting killed?"  
Remus sighed. "Sex, rape, occasional murder, it's like you're not even listening to yourself right now! Ha! That was a joke." He cleared his throat and continued. "Anyway, the risk of getting killed is half the fun! That's the excitement of it!"  
Virgil groaned, answering through gritted teeth. "That's not exciting. Danger is not exciting. It's… dangerous, that's… that's the point of danger."  
"Well sure it's dangerous, but what's life without risk? That's like a cheap hotel without endlessly stained bedsheets."  
Thomas and Virgil's faces both shot red. "L-Life without risk is safe! And… comfortable."  
"And what good does comfort do if it makes life so bland it's hardly worth living anymore?!"  
Thomas had finally had it. Stupidly, he turned away from the road to glare furiously at the two in the back seat so he could shout at them directly. "Just SHUT UP!"

…  
…  
…

"911, what's your emergency?"  
"I - I think I just hit someone. I mean, I did hit someone! I-I don't know what happened! One second the road was empty, and the next they swerved right in front of me!"  
"Okay, take a deep breath. Are there any young children in the vehicle?"  
"Uh, n-no. It's just the one guy."  
"Alright. Can you tell if they're breathing?"  
"Um… Y-Yeah? I-I think so…"  
"Okay, that's very good. Now can you tell me exactly where you are right now? We're going to send an ambulance to you."  
"Um, y-yeah… But - but is he gonna be okay?"  
"The EMT's will do the best they can to take care of him."  
"Okay… I just… I'm a really big fan of this man's work…"

\--------------------

Meanwhile, every one of the Sides simultaneously lost their vision, which was unsettling enough on its own, until they all collapsed in unison in their rooms seconds later…  
The first to wake up was Patton, who groaned and sat up slowly, blinking his eyes open. He was met with… well, he wasn't even sure what it was. Some kind of… yard? Thing? Surrounding him were… the sky was made of stone?! Wait, no, it was just really, really tall cobblestone walls. They had to be thousands of feet high… And now that he thought about it, he could only see one actual wall, which meant that this yard thing was probably thousands of feet wide as well. Whatever this place is aside, where even was he? Was he in the real world? He definitely wasn't in his room… Was he in the mind palace in some way? He didn't see Thomas anywhere… Oh, no! He scrambled to his feet. "Roman! Logan! Noooooo! My makeup adorned angel-son!" Breaking into tears, he stumbled towards Logan, the closest one to him, who was sprawled out on the cement floor, unconscious, silently reminding himself not to use the cheerful nicknames for Virgil - he expressly said he didn't like that. "Logan! Please! Please, wake up! Uh… uh… water!" He summoned a water bottle and… uh, he summoned a water bottle… He tried again. Why wasn't it working? Maybe just try one more time, maybe he was doing something wrong. Nope. He couldn't summon anything. Uh, no water then. Frustrated and more worried than anything else, he reached out a hand and patted the side of his face. Nothing. "Logan, please!" Moaning nervously and playing with his fingers, he finally gave in and smacked Logan's face gently. "I'msosorryLoganpleaseforgivemeIdidn'twanttoIpromiseIjustwantyoutobeokayI'msorry!"  
Finally, Logan shifted and groaned, then slowly sat up. "Where are w-"  
Patton interrupted him by pulling him into a tight hug. "Logan, oh my gosh, you're okay!"  
"Yes, Patton, I am 'okay'. Now would you please… be so kind… as to release me?"  
"Oh!" Laughing nervously, he pulled back. "Sorry, kiddo." He grinned, stepped back, then let his face drop. "Logan… where are we?"  
Logan looked around, took in his surroundings, and after a long time, he sighed in defeat. "I… I don't believe I have ever had to say this before… Patton, I… I don't know…"  
There was a groan nearby as someone sat up. "You? You, Logic… doesn't know?"  
"You are fully aware this is not a fact I am proud of!"  
Patton rushed over and helped Virgil to his feet. "You alright? Nothing hurts?"  
"Uh, all in one piece and pain-free… Well, physical pain at least…"  
"So normal for you, right?"  
"I guess… I just wish we knew what was going on…"  
Patton sighed. "Me too… But hey! We can figure it out, right Logan?"  
"Um, yes! Yes, of course, we can."  
"But we gotta wake Roman up first… He looks really Rom-out of it. Yeah? Get it?" Logan and Virgil both glared. "Okay, okay, I get it… Not funny… But how should we wake him up?"  
"Allow me." Logan stepped over to him, crouched down and held his hand out. "Um..." He shook his hand and tried again.  
"Ooooh, yeah, I tried that first to wake you up, and for some reason, we can't… summon things here."  
"Well, that's… inconvenient. I suppose I will be using... other methods." He cleared his throat, then said rather loudly, "Disney is officially canceled until further notice."  
"WHAT?!" Suddenly they all scrambled away, Logan being flung by the sudden, drastic change. "Oh, it's just you. Why are you all so tiny? And where are we?"  
"We have yet to make that conclusion. And we are not the ones who are small, actually, no one is small, it is you who has changed size." Logan rose to his feet and dusted himself off, then straightened his tie and looked up at him.  
"Okay, I-" Virgil groaned. "I knew you were extra, but this is just… Is this really necessary?"  
"Is what-oh good galloping piranhas! How long have I been this size?!"  
"Precisely fifty-six seconds — since you became conscious that is. One minute and one second now, one minute and three seconds, one minute and-"  
"Yes, we get the idea thank you very much."  
"Hey Roman? Not tryna rush you or anything, but could you maybe change back? Ya know, to normal size? Not that I have anything against you being a giant, it just makes it hard to hear ya up there."  
"Do not fret dear Patton! I shall return to my normal size this instant!" After a silent moment where his size changed absolutely not at all, his face dropped. "Okay, now you can fret."  
"Why?" Logan straightened his glasses. "Why haven't you withdrawn your size?"  
"I… it seems I… can't."  
"Well of course you can! What's stoppin ya, kiddo?"  
"Nothing's stopping me, I just… can't. I can't shape-shift! At all!"  
Virgil looked up. "You mean you're stuck like that?"  
"Y-Yes!"  
"What happens when Thomas calls you to the real world then?"  
"Oh, no! If - If I can't shape-shift anymore and I can't return to our size then… then I'll never get to talk to Thomas again! I'll never be a part of another video! Ever! Logan, you must help me! You'll help me, won't you?!"  
"You asked me for help? You must be desperate."  
"Logan, can't you hear how desperate I am?! Help me… please."  
Logan blinked, genuinely surprised. Roman was asking him for help, and he said please? "Of course I'll help you, Roman. Now the first step to this process is to deduce where in Thomas's mind we actually are. And since we are unable to leave, the probability of actually getting to a conclusion is growing slim…"  
"What do you mean, we can't leave?"  
"I mean exactly that, Virgil. I have attempted to leave this… domain a number of times now, to no avail. There is also the dilemma of Roman's new size…"  
They all glanced at him. He was nearly fifty feet tall now, towering above them all. "We're all aware I hate every bit of this, right?" Virgil groaned.  
Roman sighed dramatically. “I’m not exactly thrilled about this either. Although… it has always been a dream of mine to experience the life of a giant…”  
"Congratulations," Logan sighed. "Now how to reverse it… I'd have to know what caused this, and to know that would be to understand this new domain… Argh, this entire line of reasoning is a paradox!" He took a deep breath. "No, no it's not. There has to be a way to learn more about this place without speaking to Thomas… Firstly, I assume you cannot return to your normal size either, Patton? Or… Um, form?”  
“What do ya mean?” It was only then that he, and Virgil, realized that he’d slowly been shrinking and changing form. He was now about two feet tall and had floppy blue dog ears replacing his own, and sharp, pointed teeth, and his fingernails were pointed into tiny claws. They also noticed he had a visible layer of fur covering his body. “Well how did I not notice this before! I don’t remember shape-shifting.”  
Virgil shook his head. “How did I not notice that?”  
“Oh, well. Time to test your theory, Logan!” There was an awkward pause where Patton threw a hand into the air above him, then looked down at himself. “Welp, looks like your theory’s right! I… can’t shape-shift either. What about you?”  
“Neither can I. Virgil?”  
He shook his head. “Nope.”  
“So none of us has any control over our morphing abilities… Unless… I hate to bring them into this, but has anyone seen The Duke or Deceit around?” They shook their heads — all except for Patton. “Patton?”  
He was staring up at Roman, jaw dropped. “Uh, what?” he muttered, still not looking away. His ears were flatter than before against his head and his long tail was curled around one leg. Wait, tail? When did that show up?  
“Um, Logan, is it just me or is he still shrinking?”  
Logan cursed under his breath. “Patton. Patton!”  
“Uh, wh-what?” He set a hand on Patton’s shoulder, and Patton flinched and looked up at him, then laughed nervously. “Heh, wow, I just keep gettin’ smaller, huh?” He was barely taller than a foot now and still trying to force a grin.  
“I have a few ideas as to why our abilities are acting like this, but I’ll need more information first… I’ve never seen anything like this.” The one thing he wasn’t thinking about was how monstrously huge Roman, currently fifty feet tall, must look from the point of view of someone who’s only a foot tall. Even against him or Virgil, Patton only reached just under their knees now, and with no way to turn back. But of course, Logan wasn’t even considering that Patton was scared. “Roman. Can you think of anything Thomas has watched or read lately that might inspire changes like this?”  
“Um… I don’t think so… Why, do you think Thomas is doing this to us?”  
“I think his subconscious may be forcing this…”  
“So you think Thomas is doing this… on accident...”  
“It’s not that simple, Roman. I don’t think Thomas actively has any idea what’s currently happening here. But we are still in Thomas’s mind… I just have to find out where…”


	2. Adrenaline

It had been three weeks since they’d gotten stuck, and in that time Logan had done nothing but study. He performed countless experiments on the four Sides individually and wrote down absolutely everything. It turns out the room they woke up in was part of a facility of some kind. It was the farthest room on the east side of the building. Weirder yet, the facility was… seemingly there for them. They each had a bedroom, there was a living room, a kitchen, bathroom, and quite a few other miscellaneous rooms, one of which was a lab, which contained a large desk and all the paper Logan could ever need.   
The first thing they discovered was that the involuntary size-shifting applied to all of them and was most likely triggered by adrenaline, according to Logan’s notes. Although, no one had ever actually seen Logan involuntarily change size or form, so as far as they knew, it only applied to the other three.  
They never did find Remus or Janus, which meant that, thankfully, wherever they were, those two weren’t stuck with them. But that worried Logan more than anything as to what that could mean for Thomas, which only brought up more questions and less answers…  
Another thing they discovered almost immediately, was… for some reason, stuck in this place, unable to use their own abilities correctly, they also had taken on normal, real-world, human functions. They had to learn to share a bathroom, to cook, to establish proper sleep schedules, but most importantly they had to learn how to keep themselves from getting hurt in the process. Now that they couldn’t manipulate themselves at will, they couldn’t repair themselves if they got burned, or cut, ect. Currently Logan was examining Virgil’s arm, where he’d cut himself open trying to use a kitchen knife the day before. “I believe these samples should be sufficient.”  
“What are you trying to find with this anyway?”  
“I am trying to decipher exactly how our DNA structures have changed, and… why we have them at all, being figments of Thomas’s imagination.”  
“Well, tell me if you figure it out.” Virgil turned to leave, but before he could, Patton came bounding around the corner towards the door.  
“Logan! Have you figured out anything new?” Wham! He fell face-first over a cord laying over the doorway and… suddenly his massive form filled half of the lab, stuck half-in and half-out of the room, his waist filling every inch of the doorway. “Uh, we got a big problem… again.”  
“And... a really small one.”  
Logan looked down at the now two inch tall Virgil. “Oooh…” He took a deep breath and looked between the giant Patton and shrunken Virgil. They waited patiently until he flung a hand up in a way that clearly said ‘duh!’. “These involuntary changes are triggered by adrenaline. So if we can force a rush of adrenaline it should cause another dramatic change, hopefully in our favor.”  
“Hopefully?!”  
“Well, we can’t be entirely certain that it will elicit the opposite effect, but with any luck… Virgil, may I speak with you privately for a moment?”  
“Uh, I guess…”  
Nodding, Logan crouched down and held a hand down to him. Virgil flinched back and looked up at him like he was crazy. “It will only be for a moment.” Groaning, Virgil climbed on his palm and found himself completely frozen, clinging to Logan’s pinky finger desperately, eyes squeezed shut. As Logan carefully set him on the desk and sat down, Patton got the hint and started humming to keep himself from hearing them. Even so, Logan leaned down and whispered. “I apologize.” Virgil looked confused, so he explained. “You were unsettled, were you not?”  
“Oh…”  
He nodded slightly, then moved on. “I think I know how to raise Patton’s adrenaline enough to cause a sufficient reaction. But, it will involve some… acting…”  
A few minutes later, Patton stopped humming abruptly as Logan turned around, holding Virgil up by the hood with one hand and holding an open pair of scissors around him with the other. “Uh, watcha got there, uh… L-Logan?” His breathing was already strained.  
Logan narrowed his eyes and forced a grin over his face. “Have you ever wondered what one of us would look like if we were just a half?”  
Patton’s giant face twisted with horror. “L-Logan, let’s t-talk about this!”  
“What’s there to talk about, Patton? Why don’t we just see?”  
Logan closed the scissors just slightly and Virgil thrashed violently. “Patton, please!”  
Patton was looking desperate, eyes darting madly, breathing heavy. “Please, Logan, put him down!”  
“What if I don’t… want to?”  
“Logan, please! I… I don’t wanna have to hurt you!”  
“Patton, you don’t have to.” Suddenly his expression had returned completely to normal and he set Virgil down in his palm and set the scissors back on his desk. Virgil did, once again, cling to Logan’s finger — he didn’t like being that high up, and he hated being that small. “I’m not going to do anything to Virgil.”  
He sniffled and wiped at some tears that were starting to form. “Wh-What?”  
“I’m not going to hurt Virgil. How tall are you right now?”  
He looked down at himself, then realized he was standing up in the doorway and squealed. “You never were going to… I’m sorry I thought you’d do something like that. So you both faked that… for me? To fix my size? How’d you do it?!”  
“As I have said before, these changes are triggered by adrenaline. So we simply had to cause a large enough rush of adrenaline, and that caused another involuntary shift, luckily one that was to our preference.”  
“So whenever that happens we just gotta get me worked up and it’ll fix it?”  
“No. Causing a rush of adrenaline triggers an involuntary shift. When we caused you to get a rush of adrenaline it triggered an involuntary shift that… shrunk you. And since you were already larger than your normal height, it counteracted your size and returned you to normal. The only reason I attempted something so dangerous is because you were blocking the only exit to this room, and now that we all have real-world bodily functions one of us would eventually need a restroom or the kitchen. We were very lucky this time, but in the future please do not try to raise your adrenaline levels, as it could just as easily have simply exaggerated your size further.”  
“So… don’t get worked up on purpose.”  
“Please do not.”  
“Okay. But, uh, how do we fix the other little problem we got on our hands? Or, on your hands.”  
“Oh, of course! I apologize, Virgil, I forgot for a moment I was still holding you.”  
“Comforting…” Logan crouched down and moved to set him back on the floor. “Um, actually!” Logan froze. “Before you put me back down…”  
“What’s up, kiddo? Ya alright down there?” Patton crouched down in front of Logan.  
“Uh… I’m hungry. That still feels weird to say…”  
“Now that you mention it, I am too!”  
They both stood back up and Logan held out the hand containing Virgil. “I will let the two of you go, then. I have yet to examine the samples I extracted from Virgil’s wound.”  
“Oh!” Patton reached out awkwardly, then pulled his hand back before finally setting it flat against Logan’s and waited for Virgil to crawl over. “Ya alright?” Virgil nodded hesitantly — which wasn’t entirely true, but if he answered any other way Patton would just freak out. “Well, see you later. Thanks, Logan!”  
“Of course.”  
There was one more thing they’d discovered about this place — the cupboards and the fridge in the kitchen never depleted. They could eat as much as they wanted and nothing ever ran out, which was very useful. Once they got to the kitchen, the first thing they noticed was a snow white cat sitting on the kitchen counter directly opposite the door. At seeing them, it immediately started meowing loudly to get their attention. “Where’d you come from, little guy?” The cat batted at his hand, then turned, showing off the golden streak on it’s shoulder, before balancing on it’s back feet and holding a single paw above it’s head. Patton gasped. “Roman?!” The cat nodded firmly, then started pacing the counter, meowing angrily. “Okay, I get you’re upset, but there are worse things to be stuck as, right? I mean, Virgil’s just tiny.” He lowered his cupped hands so Roman could see the two inch Virgil resting in them, and they both stared at each other in shock until finally Roman snickered and flicked his head.  
“Well you’re not exactly show-ready either!”  
“Guys!” Patton cupped his other hand around Virgil and spun him away. “Let’s try and remember we’re all friends here!” They both turned their heads away and Roman flicked his tail angrily. “Come on, guys! This is happening to all of us, let’s try to support and encourage each other!” Virgil sighed, and Roman decided being angry at Virgil was less important than freaking out about the fact that he was a cat and continued to pace. “Um, well… we were just gonna find something to eat, but I’m sure Logan could try to help you turn back! He’s in the lab still. He actually just helped me get back to normal size! Isn’t that cool?!” Roman hung his head and hopped off the counter, then trudged out of the room. “Good luck!” He waited until Roman was gone, then turned and set Virgil on the counter. “Lucky. I wanna be a kitty too… Maybe next time!”  
“Right… Lucky…”  
“Whatcha want?”  
Virgil shrugged. “I really don’t care, I just don’t want to be hungry. And nothing sweet.”  
Patton slowly slid the box of cupcakes back to the back of the counter and moved to the fridge. “What about some of that rice stuff we had last night?”  
He shrugged again. “Sure.”  
Smiling, Patton got out the container and closed it in the microwave, then opened a cupboard for the dishes and gasped. “Oh my gosh, tiny bowl!” He took out the miniature dish with two fingers and grinned. “Do you see this?!”  
“Yeah. I do. It’s the same one that’s been here the past three weeks. Same mini silverware too.”  
Gasping, he pulled open the silverware drawer and squealed. “Tiny silverware!”  
“Yeah. I know.”  
“It’s so cuuute!”  
“Uh-huh. The microwave’s done.”  
It was, in fact, beeping, and Virgil jumped down into the drawer to retrieve his silverware as Patton attended to the microwave. But when he tried to climb back out, he realized… he was too short to reach the edge of the counter. His heart raced as his mind jumped to a million worse-case-scenarios, throwing images of himself getting trapped and starving to death, or growing while in the drawer, or worse yet getting caught in the rotating wheel at the end of the drawer’s groove and being crushed like he was pushed through a meat grinder! Or what if he tried to climb out on the side of the drawer and it closed on him and his top half got caught against the countertop but the bottom was still caught against in the drawer and… and… He took a deep breath, held it for a few seconds, and let it out slowly. He wasn’t alone. Patton was here. But he would have to ask for his help. The thought made him shudder. Patton could be pretty clumsy sometimes, anything could go wrong! What if he dropped him?! Hands shaking, he took a deep breath and swallowed hard. “Virgil? Oh, hey! There ya are! What are ya doin’ in there, kiddo? Virgil?”  
Virgil flinched out of his thoughts and looked up at him. “Uh…” He looked nervously down at himself, then up at the countertop. “Uh…” Why was it so hard to just say it?! Patton wouldn’t think any worse of him for asking for his help! Would he…? “I…”  
“Oh, oh! You got stuck in there, huh?” Virgil breathed a sigh of relief. “You should’a just said somethin’!” Patton reached down a single finger and held it out to him like a step stool.   
Shaking, Virgil climbed on, then jumped to the countertop. “Th-Thanks.”  
“That’s what friends are for! Oh, duh!” He slid the tiny bowl over to him, then got up to find himself a chair.  
Virgil watched him leave, then got up and stepped over to Patton’s bowl. Now that he had to eat, Patton had quickly gotten a terrible sweet tooth and almost couldn’t eat anything that wasn’t coated in sugar. He climbed a spare eraser Logan had left, then realized it wasn’t tall enough and turned it on end before climbing it again and peering into the giant bowl. He was genuinely surprised for a moment. He was actually… eating the same thing as Virgil. Nothing sweet about it at all. He was trying to climb back down when the eraser tipped back over on it’s side and in an attempt to try and stay standing, Virgil rammed his thighs into the edge of the bowl and was sent tumbling headfirst into it. Before he could even sit up properly, he heard Patton set down his chair and froze. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no, oh no! He would see him, right? He was suddenly having an incredibly difficult time breathing. Right?! Virgil scrambled at the side of the bowl desperately, only to slip and tumble further into the bowl. Oh, no. He saw a ginormous silver spoon dig into the rice under him and fell on his back, beginning to hyperventilate. He stared up at the huge face, barely able to breath, and tears ran down his face as Patton started opening his mouth. He tried, and failed, and tried, and failed again, and finally he was able to muster out some sort of half-word just before the spoon passed his lips. “P-P-P-PATTON!”  
Clang! The spoon went clattering to the counter and Patton shrieked and shot his hands to his mouth. “VIRGIL?!” Virgil landed roughly on the countertop, then rolled and slammed into Patton’s bowl, where he immediately collapsed and started sobbing. “Are you okay?!” Patton had both hands over his mouth, and tears were beginning to form in his eyes. “Oh my gosh, Virgil! I-I’m so sorry! I-I - I h-had no idea! I’m so sorry, Virgil! Are you okay?! Virgil?!” He carefully slid his bowl to the side so he could see him and noticed he was breathing heavily and rapidly — not hyperventilating now, but close. “Oh, Virgil! I-I’m so sorry!” He finally uncovered his mouth again to wipe the rest of his face dry, but he couldn’t stop crying. “I’m really, really sorry! Virgil? Can you hear me? Are y-you hurt anywhere?” Virgil turned to lay on his back and shook his head in answer, and Patton let out a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness!” He sniffled. “I thought - I thought-! You-!” He hiccuped, then sniffled, then hiccuped again. “I’m so sorry!”  
“What on earth is going on here?!” Patton looked over and there, standing in the doorway, cat-Roman sitting beside him, was Logan.


	3. Wings

Logan rushed to the kitchen, Roman in tow. That was definitely a scream. And it was definitely not Virgil. What could have happened? He thought they were just getting something to eat! What could have gone wrong? He froze in the kitchen doorway. That wasn’t good. Patton rarely let himself act so upset around anyone else. And… He watched for a moment, perplexed, then finally shook himself to his senses and stepped forwards. “What on earth is going on here?!”  
Patton looked over at him and let out a sob, dropping his face into his hands. “Logan! I-I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, I… I wasn’t watching, I just-! I’m so sorry…”  
Logan was shocked silent, but Roman was already moving. He leaped up onto the counter, then leaned his furry head against the underside of Patton’s chin before sitting down and meowing loudly, head turned to one side in question. Patton sniffled and wiped his eyes again. “Thanks, kiddo. I-I’m sorry, I just… I’m not even the one who really needs comforting right now…”  
A very tear-filled explanation later, Logan was pacing in front of the counter, slowly shaking his head. “So what you are telling me is that you, Virgil, found yourself trapped inside of Patton’s bowl… And Patton, you were starting to take a bite of your meal, and you didn’t notice Virgil… in your spoon… and… you almost… ate him?” Patton nodded, trying desperately not to start sobbing again, and Logan groaned and ran a hand over his face. “Oh, what would Thomas say…?” He noticed Roman laying on the floor, head on the tile, paws pressing his ears flat. What a vote of confidence. He took a deep breath and returned his attention to Patton and Virgil. Forget what Thomas would say. Thomas wasn’t here. “What seems the most crucial to me at this moment is to be aware if you are of sound mind, Virgil. Are you able to speak to me?”  
Virgil’s tiny form shifted, so he knew he’d heard him, but he still wasn’t speaking. His body was shaking violently and he could see if not hear that he was breathing much too heavy, and much too strained. But he wasn’t tense. He was limp, heading lolled on its side, and Logan realized too late that he was about to pass out. “Virgil!” He sighed in frustration.  
“What happened?! I-Is he okay?! Did I hurt him?!”  
Logan sighed again and reached past Patton to gently pick up Virgil’s unconscious form and lift it up to examine it further. “No, he doesn’t appear to be physically harmed in any way. He very likely passed out from sheer terror.”  
Patton clasped both hands over his mouth and started crying again, and Logan knew he’d made a mistake. Shouldn’t have said that. “He passed out from terror?! And… and I did that?!”  
“U-Unintentionally…”  
Patton cried out and Logan desperately wished Roman wasn’t currently stuck being a cat. He was very much not good at all of this emotional stuff. Roman would fair so much better in his place. “I’m s-so sor-ry!” As soon as Patton spoke, he lept off his chair, breaking into sobs, and ran from the kitchen.  
“Patton, please!” But it was too late — he was gone. Sighing, Logan spoke miserably to Roman before leaving the room as well. “I apologize, Roman, it appears your predicament will have to wait…” Normally, he would have gone to the lab to wait for Virgil to wake up, but he didn’t want to be disturbed right now, so he went to his bedroom and locked the door behind him. He carefully set Virgil on his personal desk, then collapsed onto his bed and slipped his shirt off, letting a ginormous pair of golden brown wings unfold. He noticed he had feathers spotting down his side and could assume his back had a thin layer of feathers as well. At least it was just the wings and some feathers. The other three sides had been experiencing a number of different types of unwilling morphs and changes, most common being size difference or the occasional turning into some kind of animal. For some reason, he had not been experiencing the same things. He had been experiencing changes he could not control, but never did his size change, and never did he turn back after merely a single day or a few hours as the others always did. On top of that, adrenaline had no effect on him whatsoever. He had purposefully raised his adrenaline levels many times, but could never force a change. And he only ever gained aspects of one species, of one type of animal. A barn owl. The first change merely covered his back and the back of his neck with feathers, and that lasted three days before not changing him back to his normal self, but turning completely into a barn owl, which lasted five days. He managed to keep himself hidden from the others for the first two days of that. He knew these changes did not match what the others had been experiencing, and he did not want them to start worrying about him because of this. But on the third morning, he had taken a risk and left his bedroom, sneaking through the halls to the thousand-foot room. He needed a change of scenery and was admittedly getting stressed about how long it would take him to turn back. And he had been so distracted that hadn’t even noticed Virgil walk up beside him. Looking back on it, it was completely his fault he had been discovered. Still he hadn’t been expected to be found. He had gotten a little bit flustered and snapped at Virgil’s pant leg and accidentally left a hole in it in the process, but it was enough to convince him to follow him back to his bedroom, where he opened his computer and typed out an explanation. Since then Virgil had been helping him hide this secret he’d found, and had been admittedly kind about it. But he still hadn’t told the others. He wasn’t sure if he wanted Roman or Patton worrying about him, plus telling them would only provide them with more questions and fewer answers. So he kept it hidden. He groaned slightly as he stretched out his wings and rolled the added set of shoulder blades they gave him. It made them increasingly sore to be shoved and squished beneath his shirt all day. That was not the only thing he disliked about them either. For one, the casings of each feather kept falling off in his shirt, which was extremely itchy, and on his bed, which was just a mess and a nuisance to have to re-clean every morning. After the fifth day of being a barn owl, he turned back to normal and was like that for a few days before gaining these wings a week and a half ago. They clearly still had not changed, and he was beginning to wonder if they were going to become permanent. Sighing again, he leaned back against the wall and felt his eyelids drooping. He'd found that now that they all had bodily functions and needs he got tired very easily, more so than any of the others. He shook his head hard. He wanted to be awake when Virgil woke up. A few minutes later he noticed his eyes had closed and shook himself again. He sat up straighter and stared intently at Virgil, shaking his wings a bit. It felt good to move them, after having to cramp them under his shirt all day. He tried to focus on his wings, stretching them out and folding them again repeatedly to try and work out the cramps. But it didn't work. A few minutes later he found himself leaning against the wall again, eyes closed and head leaning to one side. He shook himself. This was starting to work less and less. In mere seconds he was half asleep again. Soon he had turned and laid down on his stomach. If he was going to fall asleep anyway, he might as well be comfortable.

Virgil groaned. Immediately he noticed how sore he was. He felt like he'd just fallen off a small cliff. Then he started to remember. He gasped and curled in on himself, heart racing madly. Where was he? Where was he?! What happened? Why was it dark outside? How long had he been out? He stared at the dark window, trying to remember how to breathe. Okay. Okay. Breathe. Where was he? He took a deep, shaky breath and looked around. He immediately knew exactly where he was. Logan was sprawled out on his bed, one wing hanging over the edge and the other tucked against him. Now came the question of why? Why was he in Logan's bedroom? When had he gotten here? And how? Suddenly his stomach dropped. Logan had carried him, hadn't he? Logan carried him here. Probably in his hands. He tried and failed to breathe as his mind forced him through one worst-case scenario after another. No, but he was fine. He wasn't hurt, aside from when Patton had dropped him on the counter. Nothing bad had happened. Of course nothing bad had happened. Logan was careful and well-thought-out and he had the most stable hands out of all of them. Of course he was fine. Right now. But what happened when Logan woke up? What was he going to do? He had brought him to his bedroom, but why? His heart skipped a beat. Had he decided they didn’t trust him anymore? Did he somehow think this whole mess they were in was his fault? And if they did? If they did somehow think this was his fault? If they thought it was his fault they were all stuck here? Unable to control their powers and having to deal with real-world functions? In essence, being humans? If they all thought it was his fault, what would they do? What would they do to him? Were they going to force him to fix it? He had no idea how to fix this! Because he didn’t do this! And when he told them that, would they get angry, if they weren’t already? Were they angry? Were they mad at him already? Did they all think it was his fault or just Logan? Had Logan told the others he didn’t trust him? Was it because he knew about his wings? Was he afraid he would tell the others about his wings? Or was it something else entirely? Had he ever trusted him? Or had he been pretending? Had any of them ever trusted him? Had they just been pretending for the videos? Now that he thought about it, he never visited any of their rooms. He never saw them except for the videos. They had all been pretending this whole time, hadn’t they?! And he actually thought they’d accepted him! He never thought they saw him as an equal, except maybe Patton, but he’d actually let himself think they didn’t hate him! Why wouldn’t they hate him? He never ceased to take his work way too far and always ended up just stressing Thomas out and making his day worse. How could he have let himself think any of them didn’t hate his guts?! Of course they did! And if they thought he was the reason they’re all stuck here like this, then what now?! What were they going to do to him when he told them he couldn’t fix this? Would they torture him?! His face dropped and his whole body seemed to pale. Were they going to get rid of him? How were they going to do it? Was it even possible to kill them, since they were all just figments of Thomas’s imagination? Except right now… now they could get hurt and they had to wait to heal just like any human. Virgil’s throat felt eight times too tight as he barely managed to force sharp, painful gasps out. He could feel each half-gasp tearing at his throat and the sort-of gasps were so loud in the silence he wanted to rip out his voice box, anything to just shut up for two minutes. If they killed him like this, he would probably never come back. He would die. Actually die. He’d never been able to actually die before now. That was never something he had to think about, but now… now… he could die. He could die. And never come back. Just die. For good. Forever. Like… like a human. Like someone in the real world. Like Thomas. He had always, always been desperately, miserably aware of how easily Thomas could die. If one tiny thing went wrong, that was it. He would just cease to be, and all that would be left would be his body. He had finally managed to half come to terms with that, but now he could die too. He had to do that all over again. Learn that all over again. He couldn’t. He couldn't re-learn how to live. With a mixture somewhere between relief and horror he realized he wouldn’t have to if the others were going to kill him anyway. He wouldn’t have to re-learn anything. He could die now. And stay dead. He wouldn’t be forced back into existence, forced to… live. Living was just… so hard. Suddenly he realized why he used to make Thomas think so highly of death. Why he had spent so many nights during those times just finding new ways to kill himself, regenerating, and doing it again. It just… the idea of dying and never coming back, never regenerating, sounded so… comfortable? Was that the word he was looking for? Maybe, maybe not. He didn’t care. It almost… almost didn’t hurt to breathe when he heard a groan and a loud sort of dull creaking. He looked up, and suddenly his throat was tighter than he thought possible, and every breath rasped out loud and jittery and painful. The bed. The bed had made that sound, and the soft groaning… that was Logan. He was waking up. This was it. He was going to die. He was going to die and never regenerate. Never come back. He was going to die and stay dead, and Logan was going to be the one to kill him. That’s why he was in Logan’s room, he realized. He could lock the door here, and then Patton or Roman wouldn’t have to watch him being killed. He wasn’t sure about Roman, but he knew even if it was someone he hated Patton would probably break if he had to watch Logan kill someone. His thoughts were brought to a halt when Logan slowly stretched his wings out and sat up. He stared silently, trying hard not to blink, still rasping out pathetic attempts at gasps instead of breathing. Logan froze for a moment, then turned to look directly at him. “Virgil. You’re awake.” Then he noticed the window. “I... apologize. I must have fallen asleep. I was intending to be awake when you regained consciousness… Virgil?” After a moment, Logan stood and stepped towards his desk, and Virgil scooted backwards, then stumbled to his feet and ran for the back corner of the desk. “Oh… my…” Realizing that Virgil had run from him, Logan slowly took a few steps back, and Virgil half-turned to look at him. “Virgil, it appears you are… unwell at the moment… Can you hear what I’m saying?” Virgil didn’t answer audibly or even nod, but he shifted immediately, which meant that he had heard him. “Very good. I would like you to listen to me for a moment. Can you do that?” This time Virgil nodded just barely, but his voice was still barely a rasp and Logan was afraid he would pass out again if he continued this way. “I need you to take a deep breath and hold it for as long as you can.” Virgil listened and held his breath for about half a second before letting it out. “Very good. May you repeat that?” Again, Virgil took in a sharp breath, and held it for nearly a second this time before letting it out. “Good. Continue.” Virgil obeyed. It took nearly twenty minutes of Logan repeatedly coaxing Virgil back into the breathing exercise for Virgil to finally breathe normally. His whole body was still shaking, and he still refused to move at all, but he was breathing again, and that was what mattered. Logan could not risk anything getting too off-balance while they could actually get harmed. Especially when it came to breathing properly. “Virgil.” Not a single movement. “Did the incident with Patton… do this?” Virgil shook his head. “Oh.” He was shocked silent for a moment. He was almost certain that was why he was so upset. Being almost eaten could do that to anybody. “Then might I ask… what is the cause?” No response. He wondered what could possibly be the cause of something so terrible Virgil couldn't breathe. He stepped up to his desk and was perplexed when Virgil squeezed his eyes shut and pulled his hood tightly over his face. Was he… afraid of him? That just didn’t make any sense. “Is there something I have done wrong to you…?” He shook his head and Logan was surprised to hear him actually verbally respond to him, though he barely heard that he had spoken at all. “Could you repeat that?”  
This time it was just loud enough that Logan could understand the words. “Not yet.”  
“I don’t understand. Are you saying you believe I’m going to offend you in some way, or…?”  
“Just stop it. If you’re just gonna pretend you’re not planning to do an awful lot more than offend me, than just shut up!”  
“More than offend you?”  
“So we’re just gonna pretend we don’t know what you locked me in here for? I know you didn’t just come in here to hide. I know what you’re gonna do.”  
“And what exactly do you believe we are here for?”  
“Cut the crap! Just do it already!” He sighed and tried and failed to hold back a loud sob. “How is this gonna go? Are you gonna use a knife? Rope maybe? Chemical burn? I vote you just drop me and get it over with.”  
“Virgil, I truly don’t understand what you are talking about.” Virgil had never seen Logan so confused before. And in an instant, he wasn’t confused at all. Virgil saw the change the second Logan seemed to realize what was going on. He had never seen Logan emotional before, but now his face clearly displayed both offense and sorrow. “Knife, rope, dropping you, you thought I brought you to my bedroom to… Virgil!”  
“You’re…” He slowly turned around to face him but refused to loosen his hood, which covered more than half his face. “You’re… not gonna kill me?”  
“Of course not! What could there possibly be to be gained by us losing you, especially at an already stressful time?!”  
“But I thought you guys hated me…”  
“Have we not concluded this in a number of the videos?”  
“Well, yeah, but… those are the videos. That’s different. I didn’t think you guys actually… you know, meant any of that. Wasn’t that whole thing just a ploy to get more viewers…?”  
Logan looked more offended than he’d been in a long time. “I am… truly disturbed that you would even begin to think… you assumed that we’d been lying to you this entire time?”  
“No? I just thought it was like a generally understood thing. We never talk outside of the videos so it’s not like I knew what you guys acted like around me when there wasn’t a camera. I thought it was like a mutual agreement sort of thing.”  
“You simply assumed that we disliked you? Why did you not speak to one of us before making this conclusion?”  
“If I brought it up in one of the videos I’d just end up ruining the whole thing. I thought you guys already hated me, so I didn’t wanna mess up the video and make it worse.”  
“And you never came to our rooms to speak to us why?”  
“I thought you hated me! I wasn’t gonna let myself right in just to be yelled at or something.”  
Logan sighed. “I simply wish you had let one of us know so we could have taken care of this misinterpretation before you assumed… Why did you think I was going to be the one to… to do it?”  
He shrugged. “Woke up in your room. Besides, I don’t think Patton could kill anything, even if he did hate it, and Roman… I don’t know, he’s capable… but I guess you just seem… better equipped for it? You don’t get emotional like he does. I don’t know…” He shrugged and tucked his knees against himself.  
“I suppose that is… reasonable… I am still disappointed that you didn’t come to one of us first…”  
“Well, it wasn’t your decision, was it?”  
Logan huffed angrily, but answered calmly anyway. “I suppose it wasn’t.”


	4. Pedipalps

It was nearly twenty minutes before either of them did anything but stare at the floor. Logan cleared his throat awkwardly. “I am going to find myself sustenance. Would you like to leave or remain here?”  
“Uh, I’d rather not be down and… underfoot…”  
“Ah. Of course.” He nodded once and began tucking the tips of his wings into the waist of his pants. After forcing his shirt back on over his wings he left without a word. Roman and Patton must have both been asleep at this hour. Even if they weren’t asleep he didn’t encounter them. When he had sat down with his meal a thought suddenly occurred to him. When Virgil and Patton had left the lab, they had been going to eat. And then the whole situation with Virgil and the spoon had happened, then… He glanced over at the countertop and his suspicions were confirmed. Neither Virgil nor Patton had eaten after the incident. Both bowls were still sitting on the counter, exactly as they had been left. He shook his head at the mess, but then again who would have cleaned up? Virgil had been with him and was too small at the time anyway, Roman was… well, Roman was a cat, and Patton was an emotional wreck. Which brought him back to the fact that they were both probably still hungry. Of course, that wasn’t his problem. They could come back and get their own food if they wanted. Oh. Except Virgil couldn’t… He stared at the miniature bowl on the counter as he ate and by the time he was finished taking care of his dishes he had decided he should probably help Virgil. But even if Virgil was still hungry, would he want to eat? Usually, after traumatic events, it was common to lose appetite or even get nauseous. Was that the case? Would he even eat if Logan brought him anything? After a moment of thought, he decided it was worth a shot. So he took care of the bowls on the counter and refilled the smaller one with just a few grains of rice before bringing it back to his room. He carefully slid the tiny bowl and silverware onto his desk, then retreated to his bed with a yawn. He hated these… bodily functions. He had slept already. Probably not long enough maybe but he shouldn’t be tired again already. He took a deep breath and slipped his shirt back off, wincing as the action pulled a few feathers out.   
Virgil stared at him as he untucked the tips of his wings from the back of his pants and began stretching them out and re-folding them repeatedly. “Sore again?”  
“Ah. Yes.” He stood and collected the feathers that had been pulled, tossing them in a nearby trash can. “I wish I knew what the cause of this is…”  
“We all do.” He simply nodded in response. “Ya know how you messed with Patton’s adrenaline or whatever and it changed him back?”  
He hesitated. “Yes?”  
“Could you do that again? Try to fix me?”  
“It is likely that raising your adrenaline levels would merely shrink you further or cause a different unsatisfactory result…”  
“I know.” He hung his head. That was exactly the problem. He knew. He knew it could just mess him up further, but if by chance it didn’t… if there was a chance it could return him to normal… “I want to risk it.”  
After a long moment, Logan sighed and nodded. “Under the condition that you remember that you are the one who requested this.”  
“Yeah, I know. It’s not your fault when it goes wrong.” At the odd look Logan gave him, he corrected himself. “If… it goes wrong.” Logan nodded again and reached out for him. He flinched back but let himself be picked up by the hood of his shirt, clinging to the rim so he wouldn’t fall out. Already his heart was racing. He had to stop himself from telling himself to calm down — this was why he was doing this. He looked around and realized he was hanging above Logan’s head, which was tipped back mouth held open. He could have sworn his heart stopped for a second, but before he could react he was airborne. He let out an involuntary scream and squeezed his eyes shut. Then he landed… on something hard? He forced two of his eyes open and realized he was on the floor. And he was normally sized! It worked! He opened his other six eyes and sighed betweeen… what was that? There were two small appendages growing from the corners of his mouth. He shook his head and tried to focus on breathing.  
“Virgil. I need you to take a deep breath and hold it for as long as you can.” He nodded and obeyed. “Good. Repeat that.” He obeyed again and kept repeating the process until he found he didn’t have to force it and finally he stopped and let himself breathe normally.  
Virgil had to force himself to talk, and when he did his voice sounded odd. “Thanks.” It whistled out as if there wasn’t enough space to get the words past his lips. To test it he tried to stick his tongue out and realized there was barely enough space to do so. The new appendages on his mouth blocked the use of most of his lips, leaving just enough space for a single finger to fit between. He reached up and shoved a finger sideways into the tiny space, then reached around the appendages and his fingers bumped into something else. Something long and furry. He stretched out the new appendages, then held his arm out and realized at full length they reached just behind his wrists. He shifted his jaw and watched the new appendages shift with it — they were growing from the back of his jaw, just below and in front of his ears. Taking a deep breath and realizing it was impossibly difficult, he let the appendages rest, half curling, the tips resting against his chest. Then finally feeling started coming to his new limbs and his face went pale.   
“Virgil?” He ignored him and burst out of the room. He didn’t stop running until he ran right through the open bathroom doorway and was met with a shriek. The fact that the door was already open should have been a red light in itself. He shot straight to the mirror, ignoring the figure pressed against the back corner of the shower in an attempt to get away. His stomach dropped. From the waist up was generally human, if you didn’t count the fangs and whatever those other appendages were on his face, not to mention the eight shiny eyes scattered across his face, and the fur. But if you didn’t count any of those things, his top half was for the most part completely human. But his bottom half… He was sure Thomas had seen something like this before… what was the word for it again? Whatever. He had the bottom half of a humongous tarantula. He was so overly long and wide, in fact, that he barely fit in the bathroom comfortably. He stared at himself in the mirror. No, no, no! This wasn’t happening! What was he?! His hands shot to his hair and he grabbed it in handfuls. This was temporary. All the changes were. They were always temporary. But how long would this last? Logan had had his wings for over a week now and they still hadn’t changed! Oh, no! Would he ever be normal again? And if he wasn’t? If he was stuck like this forever? What would the others think? What would they think of him? No, no, no! What would Thomas think of him?! And even if he did change back? Logan had already seen him like this! And when the others saw him? He stumbled backward towards the door and heard a small whimper. He looked to the back corner of the bathroom, where someone was pressed into the wall of the shower. Where Patton was pressed into the wall of the shower. He shook his head, remembering how he’d reacted to the simple cartoony images on his curtains last time they had been in his room. No, no, no! He turned and ran out the door, but was stopped when he ran right into someone. Logan. He’d followed him. Why did he follow him?! No no no no no! He turned around and ran down the hallway, not to anywhere in particular. Just away. “Virgil!” Logan sighed.  
“Th-That… that was V-Virgil?!”  
Logan whipped his head around. Patton was slowly stepping closer to the doorway. No, his wings! He forgot to hide his wings. He would have made a run for it but by the expression on Patton’s face he had already seen them. He sighed. “Yes, it was.”  
“And I freaked out like that, I gotta go apologize!”  
Logan stopped him before he could leave. “Let him stay alone.”  
“Did I do that? Was that because I scared him so bad? This is all my fault, isn’t it?!”  
“No. That shift was not because of how you scared him… It was caused by me scaring him. He asked me to raise his adrenaline levels in order to cause an involuntary shift. I warned him of the consequences…”  
“But he still wanted you to try.” Logan nodded and subconsciously fluffed up his wings. “When did those show up?”   
Logan was confused for a moment before he remembered his wings. “Yes, these… They… they appeared precisely one week and four days ago. Or given the time I suppose five days."  
"What?! But the changes don't last that long!"  
"They do for me."  
"And… and how did you hide it this long? And why?" He whispered the last words and Logan could hear the tears building in his voice.  
"I… I saw no reason to worry you with my problems. You all have been experiencing your own involuntary shifts. You had no reason to concern yourselves with my own experiences as well."  
For a long time, neither of them spoke. Then Patton spoke up, glancing down the hallway Virgil had run down. "Are you sure we can't just go see him? Make sure he's alright?"  
"Are you sure you want to?"  
Patton fell silent, staring down the hallway. "I mean, I want to go apologize to Virgil, but…"  
Logan nodded in understanding. "Both of you need time." Patton nodded, still looking solemn. “If you would like I could check on his wellbeing in your stead?”  
“Aw, really?” Patton pulled him into a quick hug. “Thanks, Logan!”  
Logan cleared his throat awkwardly. “I will be leaving then.” He nodded once and turned down the hall. He went straight to Virgil’s assigned bedroom and knocked once. No answer. “Virgil?” He was about to turn and go search somewhere else when he finally got a response. It wasn’t even a word. It was a muffled, whistling grumble. But a response. “Patton sent me.” He waited for a moment, no response. “He wants to apologize. He also sent me to check if you are well.”  
“Well you can tell him no, I’m not. Why would I be? Half of me’s a freakin tarantula!” His voice sounded odd as if he were talking through something, but Logan could hear his voice right on the other side of the door. After a moment he realized those fangs must be constricting the use of some of his mouth.  
“May I come in?”  
“Why? So you can laugh at me and leave? I know it’s my own fault, you don’t have to tell me.”  
“I don’t want to tell you whose fault it is, I simply wish to see you. I may be of some assistance.”  
“With what? What is it exactly you think I can’t do on my own?”  
“Based on my limited information, eating.”  
He heard a muffled curse. “Fine.” A lock clicked and the door swung open. Virgil threw up his arms miserably. “Well?”  
“Firstly, did you have any particular questions before I explain anything in detail?”  
“Actually, yeah. What the heck are these?” He gestured to the long, furry appendages growing from the back of his jaw.  
“Ah. Those are called pedipalps.”  
“And what are they for…?”  
“They are used to hold prey still while the spiders suck out their victim’s insides.”  
“While they what?!”  
“That is how spiders eat… Spiders do not contain teeth of any kind so they are incapable of chewing their food.”  
Virgil groaned, rubbing a hand over his many eyes. “Oh, great…”  
“I assumed you would have known that much.”  
“Why would I know?! I get I’m creepy, but jeez! I like spiders, but I’m not obsessed.”  
“I apologize. I only assumed because of the decorations we witnessed when we visited your room.”  
“Yeah, whatever… So what? I’m supposed to be sucking out the insides of random beetles now or something? Honestly, I would rather starve.”  
“Not necessarily. You are still partly humanoid. You will likely have to make yourself protein shakes or something of the likes which is drinkable because of the restricted movement of your lips.”  
He shrugged miserably. “Better than beetles I guess…”  
“What would you like to discuss first?”  
“Like? Nothing.”  
Logan blinked in confusion. “You don’t want to know more about your new form?”  
“Well yeah, I wanna know more, obviously! I just…” He shrugged.  
“You ‘just’ what?”  
He shrugged again. “I don’t want to talk about it. About this.” He gestured to himself. “I’ll talk about it, just… later. Alright? I’m gonna go find something to… drink, I guess.”   
Logan watched him leave, then slowly left behind him and closed the door. He went back to the hallway in front of the bathroom, where Patton sprung off the floor. “Is he okay?”  
“Physically he appears well. Mentally… less so, but there does not appear to be any serious faults.”  
“What do you mean ‘less so’? How less?”  
“He is stressed, reasonably. This newest shift allows him very minimal use of his lips. He is unable to eat any normal sustenance. He only has enough use allowed to drink.”  
“So he can’t eat anything at all?”  
“Not until another shift alters his form, no.”  
“Well can’t we just go cause another shift? Wouldn’t anything be better than that?”  
“In my opinion, no. There are innumerable outcomes worse than what has occurred already. So if you are going to cause Virgil another shift, then I will not attempt to stop you. However, I refuse to assist. My… assistance has done enough harm already.”  
“You were just trying to help.”  
“I am aware of what I was attempting. And you are well aware of what came of it. If you would like to speak to Virgil I assume he is in the kitchen at the moment.” He fluffed up his wings nervously, then nodded once and walked away.  
Patton hung his head in the silence. What else could possibly go wrong? When he got to the kitchen that question was answered for him. There was something spilled across the counter where Virgil had clearly been trying to make something in the blender. Virgil was currently standing near the counter, slowly inching away from it as Roman stood still in cat form on the counter beside the spill, hissing and clawing at Virgil as best he could. “What’s going on?!” They both froze and turned to look at him, and he couldn’t help but flinch at Virgil’s new form. “What happened?”  
“Ask him,” Virgil growled, the sound coming out as more of a muffled blow. Roman hissed again and pawed at Virgil, then pawed gently at his tail and hissed again. “I don’t know what that means!”  
“Hold on, I might… You’re saying something about your tail, right? Oh, that’s so fun to say!” Ignoring his last comment, Roman nodded, pawing at Virgil. “Did Virgil do something?” He nodded again and pawed at his tail. “He did something to your tail?” Another nod. “Well, what did he do?” Roman stomped a paw down violently, then gestured to his tail again and let out a whine. “He… stepped on it?” Roman nodded vigorously, then stomped a paw down four times in quick succession and yowled angrily. “Four times?” He nodded and hissed at Virgil again. “Well, that explains it! Virgil probably didn’t even know he did it, right kiddo?”  
Virgil shook his head quickly. “I didn’t even feel anything! Then again…” He looked down at his legs. Would he have? He thought spiders’ legs were supposed to be pretty sensitive, but at the moment he still couldn’t feel most of his lower half.  
“Then neither of you meant it! Virgil didn’t know he stepped on your tail at all and you were just acting out of pain a bit, right? So no one’s at fault!” Virgil could argue that Roman was definitely at fault for overreacting like that, but he kept quiet. Roman nodded silently and hung his head. After an awkward moment, Patton stepped around Virgil, maybe a little too far around, and grabbed a towel. He handed it to Virgil then grabbed himself one and forced himself to step just a little bit closer to start wiping up whatever was spilled everywhere. Virgil took a step forwards and began wiping off the counter, careful to try and keep his tarantula half still. He could tell Patton was tense. He was clearly trying not to be afraid of him, but he was, and they both knew it. “What were you making?”  
“Does it matter…?”  
“Oh… I guess not. I was gonna get some stuff back out for ya!”  
“Oh. Sorry. I don’t really know what I was making.” He shrugged. “I’m just hungry.”  
“Well, I can help! What about like a protein shake? And now that you mention it, I am too! Oh, right! We never did eat earlier, huh? Sorry about that. Again.”  
He smirked as best he could around the fangs. “Could we figure out something with fruit or something at least?”  
“Oh, yeah of course! I keep forgetting you don’t like sweet stuff much. Alright, what kinds?”  
“Uh…”  
“Oh, how about mangoes? Those aren’t always as sweet.” He set down a large can of protein powder and began digging in a basket of various fruits. “Oh, blueberries aren’t that sweet!”  
“Uh, sure?” He laid the rag in the sink and began rinsing off the blender cup.  
Patton put two small mangos on the counter, then dug in the fridge for blueberries. After setting those down, he turned to Virgil and flinched. “Uh, c-could I have that?” Virgil silently handed over the blender cup. “Thanks. Alright!” Patton clapped his hands together and pasted a smile on his face. “Could you cut the pits out of the mangos?” Virgil nodded and grabbed a knife. Smiling still, Patton filled the blender cup halfway with ice but heard a whistling curse when he turned back to the counter. He gasped as the knife hit the counter. One of the long appendages attached to Virgil’s face was bleeding. He had a first wrapped around it and the appendage was spasming. “Oh, oh, oh! Um… um… Okay, okay, I’m gonna go get some help or something, um… Oh, no, oh no, oh no! Um, okay! I’ll be back!” Patton ran as quickly as he could. “Logan!” He pounded on the locked door. “Logan, it’s Virge! He cut himself! He cut the-” he gestured frantically- “the things on his face!”   
The door opened and they both raced towards the bathroom. “What did he cut?”  
“The long-” he gestured again- “things on his face!”  
“How deep is the cut?”  
“I don’t know!”  
“Patton, did he cut it off?!”  
“I don’t know! It’s just bleeding really bad!”  
Logan cursed under his breath as they rushed back to the kitchen with the supplies. “He must have cut himself off of a break point.” When they reached the kitchen it was clear he cut himself in more spots than one. He was collapsed on the floor, forehead against the counter, each leg peaked and leaning inwards towards his human torso. He was resting in a rapidly growing pool of blood and clearly half unconscious. Roman was on the counter in front of him, his entire front half coated in blood, yowling miserably. The pedipalp that had been cut was bleeding so badly it was hard to tell how far it had been cut, but it was clearly more than halfway. Logan’s entire face went pale.  
The death curl.  
“Oh, no. Virgil, no! Can you hear me?! Virgil, you need to stand back up!” He ran over and held his human half off of the counter. “Virgil! Patton, towels!” Patton didn’t move an inch. He was frozen to the spot, crying. “PATTON!”  
“O-Okay, okay!” Logan took the first towel and tried to straighten the cut pedipalp, then jumped back in surprise when the entire second half of it fell off into the blood with a splat. Patton sobbed nearby. “We can’t come back like this, can we? He’s gonna die, and he’ll never regenerate! No, no!”  
“Patton, if we want him to survive this you need to keep a level head. Firstly, I need a strip of cloth. Then open that first aid box. There is something in there that looks somewhat like a razor. Get that. We will also need a metal contraption that should be with it. Set those aside.” Patton tore a strip off of his shirt and handed it over, and Logan wrapped it around the severed pedipalp above the cut, pulled it as tight as he could, and tied it even tighter. Then he leaned Virgil’s human torso back until it was laying against his tarantula half and gripped a hand around the severed pedipalp, squeezing it as hard as he could. He used his other hand to press a thumb hard against the spot just behind where the pedipalp joined the rest of the scalp. After twenty seconds, finally, the bleeding stopped. “Patton, I need you to untie that fabric.” Patton nodded shakily and forced himself over to Virgil’s arachnid body. His hands shook so bad it took him half a minute to untie the fabric and remove it, and when he did the severed end spurted blood through Logan’s fingers. Patton let out a cry. “That is completely normal. It should stop again in a few seconds.” And in a few seconds, it did. Logan counted two minutes, then slowly removed his thumb, leaving just the hand around the severed end. He counted to four minutes this time before very slowly removing the hand. The wound dribbled for a few seconds before finally stopping. “I need another towel, Patton. A wet towel.” In an instant, he took the towel and began very carefully dabbing the wound clean. Finally, he stopped and turned to Patton. “Now comes the time we will need to use those tools I asked you to remove earlier.”  
Patton was still crying. “What is this one for?”  
“That is called a Dermatome. It is a tool used in a surgical process called skin grafting.”


	5. White Pain

Virgil forced his eyes open and immediately re-shut them against the excruciating pain. The first type of pain he felt was the stabbing, then came the throbbing, then the white-hot pain sunk in, and he didn't even try to hold back a scream. He clutched at the source of the pain and cried, and then suddenly something was holding his hands down.  
"You can not disrupt the process or it may not take correctly." He forced his eyes open and there stood Logan, who was holding his wrists down, and Patton standing behind him chewing on one thumb nail. On a table in the back corner, there was a wet cat Roman with a couple of red stains in his fur. Virgil groaned against the pain and kept crying, struggling weakly against Logan’s grasp.  
“Hey, it’s alright. Slow down a bit there, kiddo. Logan’s got you. You’re alright. I know it hurts, but it’ll heal better if you don’t touch it. Alright? Can you hear me? AngelStorm?”  
“I hear you.” His voice squeaked with tears. “Wh-What happened?”  
“You don’t remember?”  
“It is not uncommon to temporarily or even permanently lose memories of traumatic events. But to answer your question, Virgil, you mishandled a kitchen knife and severed your left pedipalp as well as cut your upper chest. You… are you aware of what the death curl is?”  
“Like what spiders do when they’re super hurt? Yeah?”  
“You had partaken such a position when I arrived. We performed a skin graft on the inflicted area, but the wound has yet to accept the new skin. Until it does the process must not be interrupted.” Virgil slowly lifted a hand to the severed pedipalp and froze. His face went pale.  
“You’re not lookin’ too great. Ya alright there, AngelStorm?” Virgil glared at him through unceasing tears. “Oh, right, no nicknames. Sorry! But really, how are you feeling?”  
“Like garbage. How do you think?”  
He hung his head slightly and he slowly sat on a couch nearby. “What hurts the most? You look really tired.”  
“Yeah, no shit I’m tired!”  
“It is going to take a considerable amount of time for the exhaustion to fade. You lost the majority of the blood in your body. An estimate of seven and a half liters to be precise.”  
Virgil winced. “How many liters am I supposed to have?”  
“Given your size, I would estimate ten or eleven.”  
“Great.” He sighed through gritted teeth and sobbed once against the pain. He almost couldn’t feel the entire left side of his head. Almost. And every time he moved his whole chest burned. After another excruciating shift in position, he let his frustration get the better of him and screamed. “Jeez, how bad did it get?!”  
Logan took this as a serious question. “As I previously mentioned, we performed a skin graft on the severed pedipalp. We also stitched the wound on your chest and applied an I.V. for blood transfusion.”  
He looked down at one arm, where an I.V. was inserted. “I didn’t even notice that before.” He gasped again as the movement sent a throb of white-hot pain through the left side of his face. “Ow! Damnit!”  
“Can’t we give him something for that? Or, I don’t know, get an ice pack?”  
Logan nodded, already leaving the room. “Yes, I shall see if we have any morphine.” He returned a moment later with a bag full of a clear fluid, which he began attaching to the I.V. beside the blood bag. Fifteen minutes later Virgil was asleep.  
“That’s good, right? That he fell asleep so fast?”  
“Yes. Especially given how much trouble he’s had falling asleep easily in the past. It is best not to disturb him.”  
Logan made to leave. “But wait! I can stay here with him, right? As long as I’m quiet?”  
“If you wish. And you as well, Roman. I personally find it a rather pointless action, but if you so wish, I simply advise you do everything possible to stay silent and not disturb him. He needs rest if he’s going to recover from this.” With a simple nod, he left.  
Roman meowed loudly and left his table to curl up on the couch beside Patton, laying his head on Patton’s leg. “I know. I’m worried too…”

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Virgil forced a few eyes open and stared as the room slowly came into focus. He opened his other eyes and stared. A dull ache had overtaken half of his face and his chest. More than anything he was exhausted. Not tired. Not really. But exhausted. A kind of exhausted more sleep couldn’t help. He looked down at the incredibly oddly shaped medical bed he was on, at the I.V. in his arm, the two bags hanging beside his bed. One was mostly full of clear liquid, the other an empty blood bag. He groaned. His head was pounding and he felt so weak he could barely lift one arm. Then the hunger kicked in, and he realized that despite his many attempts he still hadn’t eaten once today. And of course, now that he had time and wasn’t almost being eaten or being dropped from mid-air or cutting himself open, now he was so weak he couldn’t even move to get himself anything. He moaned loudly and heard a shift beside him. He looked over and there was Patton, still in the same spot on the couch he’d sat down on earlier. Roman, still stuck as a cat apparently, was curled up in his lap asleep. He noticed Roman’s fur was still stained with blood. But more urgently he noticed Patton blinking awake. “Oh! You’re awake!” He was whispering.   
Virgil tried to force a smile but decided it wasn’t working between those stupid fangs anyway and gave up. “Yeah. I just woke up. What time is it?”  
“Uh…” He glanced around and found a clock in the corner of the room. “Ten forty-five. Oh no!” He had noticed the empty bag and rushed to his feet. He rushed over and grabbed the bag. The I.V. tube was still full, but the bag itself had barely a fourth of an ounce left. He sighed with relief. “Sorry I freaked out a bit. I thought it was empty-empty!” Smiling at Virgil, he stepped over to a cabinet of some kind and pulled out a new blood bag, then stumbled and caught himself against the wall before continuing. He disconnected the old bag and started attaching the new.  
“What’s wrong with you?”  
“Hm?” Patton looked up from the successfully replaced bag, stared blankly for a few seconds, then shook his head and blinked a few times before finally focussing on Virgil. “Oh, nothing.” He grinned. “Just a bit… tired. Logan said we took more blood from each other than you’re supposed to, but…” He shrugged.  
“Oh.” He looked over at the new bag, then noticed movement out of the corner of his eye and looked the other way to see Roman slinking around the doorframe.  
Patton noticed too. “Roman, wait! He knows you would have helped too if you could! Please?” After a moment, Roman turned back and curled up in the doorway, hiding his face under a paw. “Logan wouldn’t let him give you any blood. He said it wouldn’t be safe and the amount he could give wouldn’t… make much of a difference.”  
“He wanted to?”  
“Yeah! We all did. You… you really scared us. We thought… since we can die like this… we thought we’d lost you for good…”  
He hung his head. Wow. If that wasn’t comforting… “It was really that bad?”  
Patton nodded, tears already threatening to spill over. “Logan was… really scared. He wasn’t acting like it, but I could tell. You scared him — scared all of us — when we found you like that…” He sniffed and wiped his face. “But anyway! Can I get you anything? A blanket? Is the pain back? I could get you an ice pack or something. Or are you hungry? We never finished that-”  
Virgil interrupted. “Ugh, yes, I’m starving!”  
Patton smiled. A genuine smile. “I’ll be back then. Can you watch him, Roman?” Roman walked over and hopped back up onto the couch. “Thanks, kiddo.” He smiled one last time and left. When he got to the kitchen, Logan was already there, sitting at the table scribbling something down in a notebook. “Oh, Logan! I was just about to go find you in a minute. Virgil’s awake. I just came to make him… something. Got any ideas? We were working on a smoothie when... “  
“I had the impression he doesn’t care for sweet foods?”  
“He doesn’t. We just couldn’t come up with anything else.”  
“Did he express any particular distaste for vegetable juice?”  
“Oh. No, we didn’t even think about that.” Logan nodded once and they dumped the blender, rinsed it out, and started gathering ingredients. Once they were satisfied they blended the mixture, poured it into a cup, and grabbed a straw before heading back to the medical room.  
Virgil glanced down at Roman, who was staring at him intently. “What?” In answer, Roman hopped over to Virgil’s odd bed and got up on his back legs, balancing against Virgil’s human waist and pawing at him. “What? Do you want something?” Roman shook his head and pawed at the I.V. tubes gently. “What?” Finally, he yowled, bit his own paw, and dragged it across Virgil’s arm, leaving a tiny trail of blood. He pawed at the tubes again. “Oh! The blood thing cause Logan told you no.” Roman nodded. “Why does that matter? I mean, if both of them are… giving me blood, then I don’t need yours too.” Roman gave him no response and instead curled up and tucked his nose under Virgil’s hand. After a while, Roman’s ears perked up and he hopped off the bed as Logan and Patton came into the room.  
“Hey, kiddo! Logan helped me make you something so it’s not sweet.”  
They both stepped up beside the bed. “Yes, we made vegetable juice. We used apples, carrots, kale, and-” He looked down. Virgil had grabbed the edge of his shirt and was staring him dead on, his other hand lifted just barely, fist clenching and unclenching.  
Virgil didn’t even care how humiliating it was that he couldn’t even hold his own cup, he latched onto the straw and didn’t take a second to actually decide if whatever he was drinking tasted good or not; he was so hungry he didn’t stop for air until the cup was empty. Finally gasping for air, he leaned back against part of the bed and closed his eyes. “You really were hungry. Do you want more?” He nodded.  
Patton left the room. “Roman, would you mind accompanying Patton while I ask Virgil a few questions? I am… uncomfortable leaving him alone should anything happen.” Roman left. “Virgil, how is your pain at the moment? Is the morphine strong enough?”  
He nodded and reopened his eyes. “Yeah, it’s fine. I mean, it still hurts, but barely.”  
He nodded. “Ah, I see Patton has replaced the blood bag already.” He stepped over and glanced into the cabinet thing. “As I assumed, that leaves only one left. After the last one, we will have to disconnect the tube altogether and you should be able to replenish your own blood over time. And that brings me to ask, how is your mobility?”  
“I can barely move.” He lifted one hand about six inches before dropping it back down weakly. “I mean, I can move my fingers and stuff, but I can’t handle the weight I guess.”  
“That is completely normal. With your level of blood loss, I was afraid…” He cleared his throat. “Under normal circumstances that percentage of blood loss would be lethal. I expect you will be unable to move properly for at least a week, maybe longer.”  
“A week?! And I’m just supposed to sit here until then?!”  
“Yes. I am quite sure Patton would be willing to entertain you and you can be moved to a different room if you wish, to make it less unpleasant.”  
Virgil groaned. He liked Patton, he really did, just… a week of nothing but him? Non-stop? And he wouldn’t be able to move right until then? Then, what? He had to ask someone to make him something every time he was hungry? And what would he do when he needed the bathroom if he couldn’t so much as lift an arm by himself?! He sighed and leaned his head back and just then Patton and Roman came back. Patton tried to hold up the cup for him again, but he spoke up. “Wait. Let me try.” He slowly lifted an arm, inching it higher as it shook. It got about halfway there when it fell back and he cursed. “Hey, it’s alright. It’ll get better.”  
“No! No, it’s not! It’s not alright! You say it’ll get better and that’s all well and good but what about now?!”  
“Well, now you just have to rest. That’s the only way it’ll get better…”  
“Rest. I’ve-” He tried to stifle a yawn and failed miserably- “I’ve done that already.”  
Logan raised a single eyebrow at him. “And you will do more if you wish to heal properly.”  
He groaned in response and after a long moment Patton held the cup up for him. He gripped around the bottom edge with his remaining pedipalp and let Patton hold the top. Now that Virgil actually took the time to taste it, this juice thing actually… wasn’t that bad. When he was finished Patton set the empty cup on a table and flinched when he turned back. Virgil had moved a few of his tarantula legs, which felt impossibly heavy. He felt a pang of guilt at seeing Patton flinch like that. How had he already forgotten that? Patton’s scared of spiders. He knew he couldn’t control it, but he felt like it was his fault. He was the one who had asked Logan to spike his adrenaline in the first place. Actually, that got him thinking… “If I freaked you guys out as much as you said why haven’t you changed?”  
Patton gave him an odd look. “I have. You didn’t notice?” He half-turned and wagged a long tail covered in light blue, short fur that was half curled and perked up. Then he sat down and took off his shoes to reveal feet covered in fur.  
“As have I.” Logan sat down as well and removed both shoes. A set of talons replaced what used to be human feet.  
“The only one who hasn’t changed is Roman…”  
“If my hypothesis is correct, however, animal shifts are less likely to change.”  
“That… actually makes sense now that I think about it. I mean, it doesn’t make sense, but I C-A-T the connection!”  
Virgil put on a poorly-executed smirk and Logan held back a snort and quickly changed the subject. “Virgil, have you regained any memories of the incident that caused this?”  
He shook his head. “I remember right before it, and I think I remember someone… Patton I think… someone running off super worked up? But that’s it. It’s nothing to be excited about.”  
“Well, that’s plenty to be excited about! You’re starting to remember something! Even just a bit is good, right?”  
“If he wishes to regain said memories, yes. Even the smallest amount of progress is progress. I would not suggest dwelling on the subject until you are in a better state of health, however.”  
“That might be easier if someone wasn’t forcing me to sit here and watch the wall.”  
“Well let’s get you distracted then! What could we do… Oh! Oh! I just got the best idea! We should have a movie night! We haven’t had one of those since we’ve been stuck here!”  
“That… is a considerable idea.”  
Virgil answered with a shrug. “Whatever, just not Frozen again.”  
Roman jumped up enthusiastically and puffed out his chest with a yowl. “Well, it’s decided then! Me and Roman will go pick out snacks and choose a movie and you can wheel Virgil’s bed into the living room!” With a grin, he jumped up and left the room, Roman right behind him. Logan shook his head and strapped the I.V. pole to the side of the bed before stepping behind it and starting to wheel it into the hall.  
“Alright, first we gotta pick a movie.” They stopped in front of the movie shelf. “Got any in mind?” Roman nodded and hopped onto a partially empty shelf to knock a case off. “Oh? I thought you didn’t like that one.” He hopped back down and hissed at the case to assure him that no, he did not like it. Then he hopped over and tucked his head under a blanket, then grabbed it with his claws and pulled it in tight, so it sat on his head like a hood. He put his ears flat and hissed, and hung his head low. Finally, Patton understood. “Oh! You wanna watch it for Virgil!” He nodded. “Aww! That’s so sweet!” Roman jumped out from under the blanket and hissed, pawing at him, then sat down and perked his ears and tail defiantly. “Alright, alright, fine. It’s noble. Is that better?” Roman nodded once and pawed at the case again. “Alright, I’m goin’.” He turned on the TV and the disc player, then slid the disc in and closed the disc drive. “Now let’s go get the snacks while it loads!”  
They returned a moment later, just after Logan had gotten Virgil’s bed situated beside the couch. “We’re… we’re watching The Nightmare Before Christmas?”  
“I too am confused by this. Is this movie not one of your least favorites, Roman?”  
Roman turned his head away and Patton giggled. “He chose it ‘cause he knows Virgil likes it.”  
“You chose a movie… you don’t like… for me? Well, now I’ve seen it all.”  
Roman hissed and turned away from him indignantly. “Aw, Roman, he didn’t mean it. He meant to say thank you, right Virgil?”  
“Yeah, fine, okay. Thanks.”  
“See? Now come on!” Patton moved over to the couch and sat on the side closest to Virgil’s bed, then dumped the mound of snacks he’d brought. “Oh, Virgil. I didn’t know what you’d want but since you liked the stuff me and Logan made earlier, I thought maybe…?” He held out a large bottle of some kind filled with something orange. It had a collapsable straw built into the lid. “It’s carrot juice! And I got you a cup with a lid so you can try to hold it yourself if you wanted.”  
Virgil reached out a shaky hand and gripped the bottle tight. After setting it down in front of him, he turned to Patton and hoped that he could tell he was trying to smile. “Uh… thanks.”  
“Is everyone settled?” At their nods, Logan picked up the remote and hit play.


	6. Agalychnis Callidryas

Virgil looked over as Patton walked in. “Mind if hide with you for a minute? They’re… really angry.”  
Virgil chuckled. “So I hear. What is it this time?”  
“The wings and stuff. All that time Logan’s been hiding that he’s had these shifts too. Roman’s not taking it well.”  
“Of course he isn’t. You seem to be fine, though.”  
“Well… I’m not really fine. I wish he didn’t feel like he had to hide stuff from us… Does he just not trust us?”  
“No, he didn’t want you guys to worry. He just kept telling me that same thing. We had enough of our own problems to worry about without worrying about his too.”  
“Wait… You knew?”  
“Oh. Uh…” He hadn’t meant to let that slip until Logan told them first. “Yeah. I found out by accident a while ago… I would have told you guys, I just…”  
“I get it. It wasn’t your secret in the first place.”  
“Yeah, exactly. I kept tellin’ him you guys’d rather know, but he just wouldn’t listen.” He sighed, shaking his head.  
“So how are you feeling? Has Logan let you try getting up yet?”  
“No. He says it’s too risky.” He scoffed angrily. “He’s kept me stuck here this long, why doesn’t he just give up already? If I’m not better by now it’s not gonna happen.”  
“Don’t think like that! You’re getting better already! Yesterday you even held your own cup!”  
“Yeah, what an accomplishment…”  
“It is an accomplishment! You’re not healed yet, but you’re getting better!” Virgil flashed a sarcastic thumbs up in response and Patton sighed. “I’m sorry. I should have cut the pits out…”  
“What, so you could almost die instead? Yeah, ‘cause that would solve all of our problems…”  
They were both silent for a long time. The only sound left was Roman and Logan’s shouting from the other room. “Hey, do you remember last week when Logan said he thinks animal shifts take longer to change back?”  
“Yeah? And? I still haven’t changed so he’s probably right.”  
“Yeah… I was wondering how far that goes… I mean, does it just not work when you’re an animal? Does it need more adrenaline to… I don’t know, turn on? And how easy is it to turn into an animal? Or part animal or whatever? I know I haven’t a whole lot, but it sounds like Logan has, and… I don’t know, I know this is the first time you’ve gotten animal attributes but it’s lasted more than a week now and-”  
“Is there a point to this?!”  
“I-I…” Patton trailed off, dropping his head to inspect his feet, chewing on a thumb nail and clasping the other hand around his cardigan. Virgil knew that. Of course, he recognized that. Those were two of his nervous comforts. Two of Thomas’s nervous comforts. But why…? Why was Patton of all sides nervous? Patton took a deep breath. “I’m… scared… to get stuck as an animal… As a… as a m-” He cut himself off with a shaky breath.  
“A what?” Virgil whispered as gently as he could, which wasn’t very considering it wasn’t exactly something he exercised.   
But Patton shook his head and forced a smile. “It’s nothing.”  
“Sure it’s nothing. Just like I’m stuck in this stupid bed for nothing.”  
Patton continued chewing on a thumb nail and started fiddling with a chunk of his own hair. Something was really bothering him. Especially since he admitted that he was scared… Virgil almost hadn’t believed it. He remembered there had been an entire conversation on how Patton never, ever expressed his negative aspects. And even if there hadn’t it didn’t exactly need to be pointed out. So the fact that he was openly stating his fear and discomfort was… hard to believe. So whatever it was that was getting him this worked up… it was important. “I… I’m… s-scared of…”  
“You’re scared of being stuck as a what?”  
“That thing… I’m s-scared of being that… that monster again, and… and being stuck…” He sniffled and before Virgil could decipher what his sentence had meant he noticed that Patton was crying. Wait. Patton was crying?! Hold on, back to what he’d said. What did he mean monster? Think, what had Patton turned into since they’d gotten stuck in this place…? Unless he meant before… before they got stuck here? What had…? Oh. He felt like smacking himself in the face. He hadn’t gotten involved with it, but he had heard the entire argument. The entire fight. Heard it all from Thomas’s perspective, seen from his eyes when… Oh, no. “But the worst part is… even if I wasn’t that thing I still hurt him with what I said… But that thing… I hurt him. I actually hurt him. And… if I get stuck as that thing, what if… I could hurt one of you…"  
It was then that Virgil noticed how Patton had been slowly changing throughout their conversation. He had gained an extra foot of height and his clothing pulled unsettlingly tight. He had patches of… oh no. He wasn't gonna like this at all. "Patton?” Patton looked down at him, trying to wipe the tears away; and failing miserably. Virgil silently gestured, and he looked down at himself. Immediately both hands went to his face. “No…” He sobbed behind his hands.  
“Patton, wait, don’t - ugh… I mean, because… oh, fuck, why am I so bad at this?!”  
“Language.”  
He almost laughed. “Whatever. Point is… Ugh. I’m not good at this whole encouraging words thing, okay? So just give me grace, okay? But I’m trying to say… I guess whether that form was? Is? Whatever, whether that form’s stronger or not, you still did what you did… on your own? So… you can just choose not to get angry and then so what? I mean, yeah, it’s stronger and that’s why he got hurt, but you still… moved? You could control yourself, right? So then…” He shrugged. “I knew this was a waste of time…”  
Patton sniffled again and peaked between two green fingers. “No, I… I get it. And… I guess you’re right… If I hadn’t let myself get so upset in the first place, none of that would have happened… Thomas wouldn’t have gotten hurt… I guess it really was my fault…”  
“Yeah, well, Roman wasn’t willing to back off either, so…”  
Patton didn’t seem to care about how much it was Roman’s fault too. At least some of it was his fault. He knew that when it happened. But Virgil was making a good point. He had been able to control himself physically. Which meant… if he could keep his emotions in check. Yeah. This could work. He forced a smile and finally stopped crying, feeling the silence press around him, but in a comforting way. Actually… why was it silent? Had Roman and Logan stopped arguing? That must be it. But then… oh no. Who knows how long he’d be stuck like this? The others. Roman and Logan. They would see him. Roman would see him like this. Again. No. No. No. No. No. No no no no nonononononono! He started sobbing again, and then he felt very weird, and then he noticed he was being picked up by something. No, someone. He could see their finger wrapped around him. Their really, really huge finger. Has he shrunk again? He did shrink more often than any other type of change, but usually not this much. Often he just lost a few feet. He let himself go limp in the grasp of whoever was holding him. Oh, right. That’s Virgil. Roman and Logan were fighting. Or had been a few minutes ago. He blinked his vision into focus and stared, and suddenly every bit of his tiny body froze and then kicked and flailed madly. His thoughts ran rampant on pure instinct as he could only think one thing. Spider. Spider. Really, really, freakishly humongous spider! Huge. Huge spider. Huge legs. Huge spider legs. Huge. Dangerous. Huge. Spider. Danger. Spider. Danger. Run! Danger! He finally managed to break free of the grasp and jumped as far as he could. And something slammed into him in mid-air. He went crashing down and landed on something soft, where whatever had hit him immediately covered him and pressed him still. He was confused and terrified and he just wanted to get away! Finally, something similar broke through his thoughts. Virgil’s voice. “Jeez, what was that about?! Did you think I was gonna kill you?! Patton? If I let you go, can you stay this time?”  
After a long moment of hesitation, he slowly lifted his hand. The tiny tree frog his friend had turned into remained completely frozen, except for a few rigid movements every few seconds. He was terrified. Of… of him? He was watching him dead on, staring intently at his lower half, his tarantula half. Virgil flicked a leg to test it and - yup - he was right. Patton made another jump for it. And he had to pin him to the bed again with a flat palm. “Patton come on. It’s me. You’ve been fine with it this whole time, why freak out now?” Of course, he knew the answer to that question. Everything is just so much scarier when you’re that small. So much more dangerous. “Are you even listening to me right now? It’s me. Virgil. You know me.” He carefully picked up the very tiny form of his fellow side and held him up level with his eyes on one finger. Well, level with the two biggest eyes that actually still had sockets and everything at least. “See? It’s just me. No one else is even in here.” Patton stared at him unblinking, tense. Scared. He sighed. “Alright, fine. You’re just scared of me now. Not like I haven’t dealt with that before. Let me get someone to come get you at least so you don’t, I don’t know, get stepped on or something.” But before he could call for anyone he felt Patton’s tiny form shifting. Virgil watched as Patton climbed to his fingertip and wrapped around it. “What’s that supposed to be? Some sort of hug?”Patton just squeezed his fingertip tighter in answer. “You know, I wasn’t yelling at you. I know I’m hard to get along with, I don’t blame you for hating me.” He hugged his finger even tighter. Virgil shook his head and rolled his many eyes. “Sure. Whatever. Say you actually are sorry — then are you still scared of me?” Patton froze and somehow tightened his grip even more, making his fingertip start to tingle. “Tch. Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He reached over the edge of the bed and pressed a button. Both Roman and Logan appeared a few moments later and they glared at each other silently. “Uh, guys?” They both looked over. Virgil held up the finger Patton was clinging to. “Patton got another shift. Aaand now he’s terrified of me and he won’t let go.”  
“Ah. That is… quite odd. I hypothesized that we could only gain a single species’ attributes.”  
“Maybe you just don’t know everything.” Roman glared.  
Logan glared right back. “Of course I don’t. No one does.”  
“Guys! Problem, right here. Still needs solving.”   
They both silenced and looked over at him. Finally Roman spoke. “Well, I’ll watch him then!” Logan left immediately. Roman glared at his retreating back, then finally stepped over and held a finger out for Patton to climb onto. But Patton didn’t move an inch. He frowned. “Come on, Patton. Hey. Hey, Patton!”  
“I told you, he won’t let go. He’s… scared. You’re probably gonna have to pull him off.”  
“I-I knew that! I was just trying to give him a chance!" Roman glared at him, then carefully reached out and pinched Patton, pulling back gently. All he got was a loud squeak in response. He let go immediately. "Sorry! Sorry! Did I hurt you?"  
Virgil groaned. "Alright, I’m done with this. Be ready to catch him.”  
“What?! What do you mean, catch him?!”  
“I mean be ready to grab him!”  
“Why? What are you gonna do?”  
“Just be ready!”  
“O-Okay!” Roman scrambled to the end of the bed and half-crouched, arms held out on either side of him. “Alright, I’m ready!”  
Virgil nodded, then brought Patton up to his face and hooked his right pedipalp around his fingertip, and around Patton in the process. Patton immediately squeaked and made a jump for it. “Now!” Roman lunged at him and missed, and Patton jumped off his arm. “I thought you said you were ready!”  
“I thought I was!” Roman grabbed at him a few times to no avail.  
“You gotta put your whole hand over him!”  
“I am!”  
“No, you’re not! Your whole hand! Cup it over him!”  
“Okay, jeez!” But it worked. He cupped his hand and slammed it down over Patton. All three of them froze. “What the heck?! I could’a gotten him off without you scaring him!”  
“Maybe you could have, but you weren’t.”  
“You didn’t even let me try!”  
“I did let you try, and you made him scream!”  
“So did you! Plus it doesn’t count if you only let me try once!”  
“You tried once and failed. Why would Iet you try again?”  
“Jerk.”  
“Priss.”  
They glared daggers at each other until finally, Roman picked Patton up and left. He brought him straight to his assigned bedroom and set him on the desk in the back corner, where he sat frozen for a solid forty seconds before he blinked and looked around the room, finally stopping to stare at Roman, who chuckled and shook his head. “Are ya in there?” Patton blinked slowly in response, then hopped forwards once, looked around, and began exploring the desk.  
It was getting easier to breathe. His tiny heart was still racing though, and he couldn’t think. Where was he? No, spider! Where was it?! He looked around frantically and realized he was in an entirely different room. Okay. He was safe. But where was he? It looked like a bedroom... Finally, his gaze settled on the most obvious thing in the room. Oh. This must be Roman’s bedroom then… He stared at him blankly. He wasn’t sure what to do with this information. Was this good or bad? “Are ya in there?” He blinked slowly. What? Oh. How long had he been staring? Okay, time to look a little less crazy. He turned and looked around the desk. Okay, think. Think anything. Ugh! What was wrong with him? He tried to look busy, but a moment later he heard Roman’s voice again. “Are you still freaked out from Virgil? Normal Patton was fine with him, why is frog Patton scared of him?” He turned to look at him. Virgil? Scared? He wasn’t scared of Virgil. What was he talking about? “Can you hear me?” He bobbed his head in a nod. “What’s up with you suddenly being scared of Virgil?” Again with that question. He wasn’t scared of Virgil. What was he talking about? When had he acted scared of Virgil? “Virgil? Five minutes ago you were glued to his finger with terror. Sound familiar?” He blinked. Virgil’s finger? Is that what he was on earlier? So Virgil was there? But he didn’t remember seeing Virgil… Just Roman, and Logan for a second, and… that huge… spider… oh no. How had he forgotten?! Virgil was a huge spider right now! That was Virgil! No, no, no, this was bad. This was very bad. He had acted like that to Virgil?! Just like the first time he’d seen Virgil like that… Suddenly he heard a knock at the door and blinked his vision into focus. Roman sighed and glanced over at it. “What do you want, Logan?”  
“Patton is currently with you, am I correct?”  
“Yeah? So? You didn’t answer my question.”  
Logan sighed on the other side of the door. “I wish to inspect the breed he has shifted into in the hopes of connecting some of the breed’s mentalities with his former shifts.”  
“Why do you have to come in for that? Can’t I just tell you?”  
“Then what breed is he? And I need to know than simply a tree frog, that much I already know.”  
Roman shut his mouth and glanced down at Patton. A moment later the door opened and Logan silently stepped past him and sat down at the desk. “Agalychnis callidryas.”  
“What?”  
“Agalychnis callidryas. That is the name of the breed he has shifted into. Or, simpler put the red-eyed tree frog. That simply doesn’t make any sense… it has no similarities whatsoever to any variation of pitbulls. The mentalities are completely different… So it has nothing to do with the breeds’ mentalities, then is it based on a personal preference…?”  
“If it was based on a personal preference that would mean you like turning into a bird.”  
“Not necessarily. It would simply mean that if I was forced to turn into an animal I would prefer turning into an owl over any other species. I suppose I wouldn’t mind turning into a fox either…”  
“So if that’s the case then why did I turn into a cat?! If I could choose I’d wanna be a stallion!”  
“Perhaps… seeing as how Patton has portrayed two different species, maybe… we may all begin displaying aspects of an entirely separate species…”  
“Great. So what do we do with him?”  
Logan followed his gaze to where Patton was staring up at them from the desk. “There is nothing we can do. We must simply wait for another shift.”  
“You said they happen whenever our adrenaline goes crazy, right?”  
“I suppose that’s one way of putting it, yes.” Roman nodded thoughtfully. “I would not suggest causing a shift on purpose. It may merely make the situation worse.”  
“Yeah, thanks for the input, Specs, now can you go?!” Roman waited until he heard Logan’s footsteps retreat down the hall before he turned back to Patton. “We’re about to cause you a shift.”


	7. Perforation

Roman had brought Patton to the huge room they first woke up in. It was not going well. He had tried everything he could think of, and there had been no shift. Not even a small one… Which left him one option… One he desperately didn’t want to resort to. But if he was going to force another shift in Patton, this was the only way. There was no way he was going to let Patton stay stuck as a frog the size of a quarter. Alright, this better work. But how could he do it? He couldn’t play the bad guy, Patton would see past that in a second, so how could he scare him…? The most obvious thing would be threatening Thomas's safety, but since they didn't know what state he was in… he felt like that would be going a little too far. So what else scared him…? Ah-ha! Of course! The only other thing that really scared him was the other sides' safety being in jeopardy! So if he put himself in danger… He found a foothold on the cobblestone wall and started climbing. He couldn't have said how long he climbed but when he finally stopped he couldn't see the ground clearly and he could barely hold on. He stared down at the ground where he'd left Patton and took a deep breath. This better work… He let go.   
"ROMAN!" Patton lunged and caught a fifteen-foot Roman on his fingertip. In less than three seconds Roman was unconscious, and Patton stared blankly. That was... Roman? He lifted his fingertip to his face and squinted. Oh my gosh, it was! That was Roman! Then… How big was he?! If Roman looked that small… He looked around frantically and his stomach dropped to his ankles. He could see the ceiling above him. He could see the ceiling. He'd never seen the ceiling before. Terrified, he looked down at the doorway and to his horror he saw a figure the size of an ant rushing in. He held Roman against him and stared at the tiny figure, waiting for them to pass out just like Roman had. But they never did. They were just standing there. No, wait… they were moving! He slowly got down on hands and knees and squinted at the tiny figure. It was repeating the same action over and over. He very carefully laid down the finger that held Roman and leaned closer to squint even more at the ant-sized figure. Finally, he saw what it was doing. It was gesturing at the ground and miming laying down. He tilted his head in confusion but slowly made his way into a position where he was laying on his stomach, propping himself up with one arm. With the other hand, he held out the one finger holding Roman towards the tiny figure and realized something — Roman was at least three times the size of the other figure, who raced up to the wall and climbed it partway, gesturing with one arm. Patton obeyed and slid the finger up against the wall. The tiny figure, who he decided must be Logan since Virgil was still bed-bound, dropped onto his finger and walked up and down past Roman, examining him. In an attempt at communication, Logan held up two thumbs-ups and nodded. Patton sighed, nearly knocking Logan right off with the breeze he caused. Roman was okay. He was okay. But why had he jumped in the first place? He knew he had been trying to raise his adrenaline and cause another shift, but he wouldn’t be that desperate, would he? For him? Just to make him more comfortable? Sure being that tiny was scary, but just as Logan had said the outcome of forcing a shift was so much worse. He had been scared, yes, but Roman was so scared when he saw what Patton had become that he’d went unconscious! Why would he do that knowing the risk?! Why hadn’t he just listened to Logan?! Was it so hard to just leave him alone and let the next shift come on it’s own?! He could have handled being stuck as miniature frog for a week or two! Why had he been so determined?! He hadn't realized he'd been crying until he saw the tiny figure pressed against the wall on his fingertip, soaking wet and barely visible through his tears. Oh, no! Logan was staring up at him but he couldn't stop it. He couldn't stop himself from crying. Now not only was Roman passed out from merely seeing him, he'd cried, not even that much, and had managed to completely soak Logan in the process! He had to calm down! He had to calm down! But how?! What would Logan tell him right now if he could hear him?! Why was this so hard?! Suddenly he realized he was sobbing and Logan had moved to the center of his fingertip, laying over Roman’s body to brace them both as his shaking tried to knock them both off. No, no, no! Okay, think.  
Think, Patton! You gotta get them away before you hurt them!  
He tipped his finger and slowly let them slide down the wall, then immediately sat up and scooted away from them until he could barely see Logan at all, where he wrapped his arms around himself and sobbed. He sobbed and sobbed and sobbed until he felt weak from it. “Patton!” He froze. Was that…? He looked up from where he’d buried his face in his knees and saw Roman waving his arms frantically. Wait, Roman? He was awake? How long had Patton sat here sobbing? Nevermind that, Roman was trying to get his attention. So he refocused his vision and saw Roman still there waving frantically, and he noticed that he was holding… something. Roman held the tiny something near his face and screamed and Patton heard his barely audible, distant voice. “Patton! Hey, if you’re worried about me, I’m fine!” Patton sniffled and nodded in response, letting a smile spread across his face. That’s true. But then his face sunk again because that wasn’t the point. The point was that no matter if he was fine now, Roman had passed out. Because of him! And worse yet, he’d passed out from fear. From terror. This was the second time he’d scared one of them so badly they lost consciousness! What was wrong with him?! Would it be Logan next? Was he somehow going to scare the literal consciousness out of Logan?! He wiped yet more tears off his face and shook his head. This as all his fault. “Patton! What’s goin’ on?” He shook his head again.  
Roman sighed and let the megaphone fall to his side. He wished Patton would just tell him what was wrong! Then Patton did exactly that in a high-pitched sobbing scream and he wished he’d never wanted answers. He collapsed on all fours, hands pressed violently against the sides of his head. Make it stop, make it stop! But the deafening gun-shot voice continued. He forced himself to take his hands off of his ears and think of Logan, who was on the ground beside him, screaming. They could get hurt now, and being half his size, Logan was much more likely to have his eardrums burst than he was, so he clasped his hands around Logan’s entire head. After a few terrible moments he felt Logan pushing against his hands and he pulled them back. It was taking a while for his ears to re-adjust and continue to let him hear anything, so in the meantime, he looked over at Logan and asked if he was alright. Wow, his hearing was really fuzzing out on him, he didn’t hear so much as a distant mumble of what he’d just said. He saw Logan saying something while he got back on his feet but again he didn’t hear a thing. Shaking his head, he pressed his thumbs into his ears and shrieked back from the pain immediately. Why did it hurt so bad?! He shook his head more and pressed his hands over his ears until finally, the throbbing calmed down enough he held still and looked at Logan, who was giving him an odd look. He said something and gestured for him to sit down. He had no idea what was going on so he decided to listen to Logan for now. Once he was sat down Logan said something else and held one hand up near one ear and then the other and spoke again. He stared blankly. What was he doing?  
After Roman had sat down Logan quickly warned him what he was doing just in case his theory was wrong. Then he held two fingers beside one of Roman’s ears and snapped a few times, then repeated the process on the other side. No response. “Roman? Did you hear that? Even a single time?” No response. Great. He was afraid that this meant that his hypothesis was correct. He decided to try one more thing, just in case he was acting like this on purpose for some reason. He stepped around behind him where he couldn’t be seen and once again snapped his fingers beside both ears. Again, no response. This was not good. Not good at all. He stepped back around in front of Roman and gestured towards the nearest exit before taking a step towards it. He glanced back to make sure Roman was following before going straight to the hospital room where Virgil was stationed. Immediately Virgil looked up at them. “What was that sound?!”  
“It was caused by Patton. Roman caused Patton to experience an involuntary shift and he caused far too much adrenaline in his system at once… If I had to make an educated guess I would assume Patton is currently slightly over one thousand feet tall.”  
“Hell no. No way. You are not seriously telling Patton, of all people Patton, is in the other room a thousand feet tall right now.”  
Logan blinked a few times before answering. “I am not, no. I said slightly over one thousand, or that is what I assume.”  
“Yeah, not any better. Okay, okay, but that still doesn’t answer my question — what was the sound?”  
“Patton was… crying, and Roman successfully contacted with him, and he answered… the problem was that he answered as his sobbing hit a climax, distorting his voice to a high-pitched squeal rather than his average tone.”  
“So the piercing, deafening shriek was Patton… crying.”  
“In a way, I suppose so. Yes.”  
“So what are you doing in here?”  
“Ah, well…” He glanced back at Roman, who was staring between the two of them with a confused and exasperated look, and sighed. “In an attempt to secure my own safety Roman abandoned his own and used his hands to give my ears an extra block against Patton’s voice, and…” He took a deep breath. “I believe both of his eardrums have been perforated.”  
“You can fix that though... Right?”  
“A perforated eardrum can and most commonly does heal, yes, but there is a very limited number of things one can do to speed up the healing process, which often takes roughly three months… And I believe he has lost his sense of hearing… which will likely not return until the perforation itself is healed…”  
“So you’re saying he’s deaf for three months?!”  
After a long moment, Logan answered him. “Yes. For roughly three months, Roman will likely have a complete loss of hearing… Because he chose to protect me instead of himself…”


	8. Unavoidable

Roman looked between Logan and Virgil. What were they talking about? And why could he still not hear them?! Or anything else?! “Uh, Logan? What are we doing here exactly?” Logan said a few more things to Virgil who looked over at him with the most degrading look he’d ever seen on his face — pity. What right did he have to be giving him that look, huh?! There was nothing wrong with him! “What?!” Virgil and Logan looked at each other meaningfully for a moment before finally Virgil sighed and nodded. What was he agreeing to? What was going on? Logan picked up a clipboard from a nearby stand and began writing on it. After a few tense minutes, Logan handed it over to him hesitantly. Hesitantly? Logan was never hesitant about anything! Slowly he looked down at the page and began reading.  
Roman, there is no way I know of to tell you this without distressing you, so I am not attempting to. When Patton attempted to reply to you he created a soundwave that could have easily broken glass if there had been any nearby. I of course gained no damage from the incident thanks to your help, save for a slight ringing. But because you abandoned your own protection to instead protect me, it left your eardrums completely defenseless against the soundwaves Patton’s voice caused. This is going to be difficult for you to accept, but the soundwaves perforated both of your eardrums, immediately cutting off your sense of hearing. Depending on the care taken to aid in the healing process perforated eardrums can take anywhere from two-to-four months to heal. Until your eardrums have healed completely, your hearing will most likely not return. Your hearing may not return until slightly after your eardrums are completely healed. I apologize that there was nothing I could have done to prevent this.   
To summarize this simply, your eardrums are both perforated and until they are completely healed you will essentially remain deaf.  
He stared at the page blankly for a full two minutes before the information finally settled in. He collapsed to his knees, finally able to sit upright in the room, but unable to force himself to even try. Roman let himself fold over forwards, letting his face nearly touch the floor. He could feel tears building behind his eyes. No. This wasn’t true. This couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be. No, he wasn’t about to cry about this. This wasn’t happening. It was all some sick joke, it had to be. In a few minutes, his hearing was going to slowly come back, and he would laugh in their faces. He waited for it to return, and waited, and waited. Finally, he tore the page off of the clipboard and crumpled it, then threw both it and the clipboard at the opposite wall. “No! No, you’re wrong! I am fine! I’m fine!” But the longer he sat there the longer he realized that maybe he was the one who was wrong. Nothing was changing. Nothing was changing at all. He couldn’t hear. He couldn’t hear anything. Anything! He realized then that at some point he had started crying and he angrily wiped the tears off his face. No, they were wrong! They had to be! They had to be!  
After a very long while, Logan finally stepped up and awkwardly set a hand on Roman’s shoulder, who immediately flinched and looked right at him. Roman’s eyes were red and swollen and he was glaring as best he could. He glanced awkwardly at Virgil and carefully set his hand back down on Roman’s over-sized shoulder, then gestured to himself and then to one of Roman’s ears. Roman shrugged. Sighing, Logan stepped over to a cabinet, where he removed an otoscope and held it up for Roman to see, then gestured again to an ear. Finally, Roman seemed to understand and turned his head where Logan could easily reach it, completely silent except for a few sniffles. Logan only had to look into each ear for about a minute. He slowly shook his head at Virgil, then stepped away to find the clipboard Roman had thrown, which he scribbled down some notes on before removing the paper and leaving it on a countertop. Logan gave Roman and quick glance and dug into the cabinet again. When he returned he had set out the supplies on a moving table, which he wheeled up beside Roman. “What is all that for?” Logan looked up at Roman and grabbed the clipboard to write a quick answer. He showed Roman his answer and waited for him to nod and turn his head before reaching for the supplies. When he had finally secured the gauze on both sides he returned everything to its proper place and looked back at Roman, then wrote a quick note and showed it to him.  
There is nothing else I can do for you at the time. If you begin to experience any pain we can treat that but until then simply keep an eye on the bandage and let me know immediately if you begin to experience pain and/or unusual drainage.  
Roman raised an eyebrow. “So that’s it? There’s nothing you can do? I just have to wait?!” Logan held up a new note in answer.  
That is correct. Again, if you begin to experience any pain we can and will treat that but until/unless that does happen there is nothing else I can do.  
There was a long silence, after which Virgil spoke up. “So is Patton still in there? You know, huge?”  
“Yes, I believe so.”  
Finally, Roman shook his head and turned to the doorway. “I’m leaving guys. I need time to think.”  
They both silenced and watched him go. “Just as I presumed he is not taking this well at all…”  
“Just give him his space. You might need a minute too if you were told you’d be deaf for the next three months.”  
Logan nodded. “Addressing the previous topic, why are you concerned as to Patton’s whereabouts and form in this exact moment?”  
“Cause he’s literally like the embodiment of emotions and all that and if he knew he hurt Roman he would probably lose it?”  
“That is an excellent point. I’m going to check on him.” Logan left without a word and went straight back to the giant room. Patton was there, still nearly a thousand feet tall. He was hugging his knees to his chest, face hidden in them, shoulders shaking as he cried. Logan looked around and quickly found the megaphone that had been discarded earlier. “Patton! I need you to attempt to calm yourself!”   
Patton’s head jerked up and he stared down at Logan. His face was stained with tear streaks and his eyes were red and swollen. “Is he okay?”  
Logan had to force himself not to flinch at the volume as Patton’s voice shook every inch of him. “Both of his eardrums have been perforated, temporarily eliminating his sense of hearing. It will take roughly three months for the perforations to heal, and it may be slightly longer than that until his hearing returns. Patton?” Patton was staring down at him, face frozen in a look of horror, tears streaming down his face.   
Slowly, he brought his hands up to cover his mouth and shook his head. “He can’t hear…?”  
“No, he cannot hear. But it is temporary.”  
“And it was because of me…?”  
Logan hesitated for a long time before answering. “His eardrums were perforated because of the extreme volume of your voice caused by your current size. And so, since you did not choose to become this size and are unable to change your size and reverse it… Physically, yes, you screaming did result in Roman’s eardrums being perforated. But in simple terms, it is not your fault.”  
“But it is my fault! I did this… I did that to him…”  
Logan flinched at the volume. “Patton, you could not control your size. There was nothing you could have done to change the situation.”  
“Yeah, maybe…”  
“Patton, if you do not have another shift in the next few hours I will have to force one.”  
“What…? Why?”  
“Because in our current states we have needs. It is simply unreasonable to try to cook anything that would satisfy your hunger at your size, and if you were to need the restroom there is no way you would fit into the hallway to get there.”  
“Oh. Okay…”  
“Is that not preferable to your current state?”  
“Yeah, no, I want to shift again! I definitely don’t want to be this big any more. But… what if I hurt someone again?”  
“Unlikely. But in such a scenario we do have access to medical facilities. Anything we could need is in the room Virgil is currently housed in.”  
“Okay… If you’re sure…”

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It had been four hours since that conversation and nothing had changed with Patton. Logan took a deep breath and stepped into the giant room, putting on a solemn expression. “Patton, it’s Roman. He is-”  
Before Logan could register what was happening Patton was back to his normal size and clinging to Logan’s shoulders. “Tell me he’s okay! Please, Logan! Please! Is he okay?!”  
Logan sighed and nodded. “I was going to say that Roman is in need of some comfort. He is not taking his temporary deafness well.”  
Patton nodded, unable to hold back tears. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! I thought something was wrong!”  
“He is well, Patton. Would you like me to escort you to him?”  
Patton nodded, and so Logan led him to the living room, where he was met with a heart wrenching sight. Roman, normally sized, was sitting on the couch with a disney music video playlist turned on on the TV, staring at the screen dejectedly, sniffling and blinking hard. Patton covered his mouth. “Oh, Roman…” He slowly stepped forwards until Roman caught sight of him and flinched, immediately turning the TV off.  
“Uh, Patton! Y-You’re back to normal!”  
Patton nodded and smiled sadly at him. Then he pointed to the TV and put a hand over his heart. “I-I - it was nothing! I was just watching it for the video. Really.” Patton sighed and shook his head, moving over to sit next to him on the couch. He looked at him meaningfully and nodded, then held out his arms. Roman stared for a moment, then he burst into tears and collapsed into the hug. “It’s not fair, Patton! It’s not fair!” Patton hugged him back, and he sobbed into Patton’s shoulder. “I’m not me without sound! How am I supposed to learn new songs?! How can I sing when I can’t hear if I go too high or too low?! Why did I have to lose my hearing?! Not that I’d wish this on anyone else, but Virgil doesn’t rely on sound! Or… or…” Patton pulled back and shook his head, putting a hand over Roman’s heart. Roman sniffled. “I know, I know, I’m better than this.” Patton nodded gently, then hung his head and shook it. “What? What is it?” Patton looked back up at him, and there were tears in his eyes, making him blink rapidly. He held up both hands in a pleading motion and mouthed “I’m sorry”. Roman looked confused. “I don’t get what you’re saying…” Patton shook his head and pointed to his ears, then gestured to himself and mimed screaming before repeating the pleading motion and mouthing another apology. “Oh, that! I’m not angry at you for that. If it was anyone’s fault it was mine for forcing you to shift in the first place.” Patton shook his head violently. “Okay, fine then, it was no one’s fault. It happened anyway, so does it really matter whose fault it is?” Patton sighed and shrugged. “Okay, then let's forget it. Whether it was your fault or mine it still happened… So it doesn't matter…” Patton nodded slowly, then offered him another hug, which he accepted. “Thanks for coming to say hi… even though I can’t hear you…”  
Patton hugged him tighter and spoke to him softly, even though he knew he couldn’t hear him. “I love all of you guys, no matter what…”


	9. Overexertion

Patton peaked around the corner into the medical room. It had been a week since Roman had lost his hearing, and he had been needier than ever. He refused to be alone the whole past week, the only exception being when someone needed the bathroom, in which case he would wait outside the door until they came out. He couldn’t stand not being able to watch movies without subtitles or listen to music, and he was filling the void with wanting attention from the others twenty-four-seven. Mostly Patton hung out with him while Virgil fought Logan to let him do something and Logan tried desperately to investigate how being wounded affected the unwilling shifts. Which, they had learned, it did. Virgil still had not turned back from his half-tarantula form and in the week since Roman had lost his hearing he hadn’t changed at all either, whereas Patton had turned all the way pitbull for a day once and was currently stuck half-pitbull, half-normal, and Logan had not only gotten feathers down his back and arms but also there was white fur intertwined with the feathers and his teeth had gotten sharp and pointed. Logan wanted to know if it was possible to experience a change while you’re wounded at all, and why it wasn’t happening. Roman was determined to have all the attention he could possibly get. And Virgil was bored out of his mind. Patton had been with Roman almost a hundred percent of the time. Roman had even managed to drag his bed into Patton’s room and had been sleeping in there so he wasn’t alone at night. Which Patton was fine with. He loved spending time with all of them, but he’d been spending all of his time with just Roman. Patton smiled at Virgil and stepped into the medical room. “Hey, Virgil!”  
“Sup. Been a while since you’ve been here.”  
“I know, I’m sorry I haven’t come to visit. Roman hasn’t let me leave his sight.”  
“Yeah, I get it. He can be pretty extra.”  
Patton smiled momentarily. “That’s true. He’s just not taking it well. But, um, I wanted to talk about something…”  
“Okay…? Is this a bad ‘talk about something’…?”  
“No, no! It’s nothing bad! I just… I feel really bad for how I reacted last time… I wasn’t thinking at all…”  
“What do you mean… last time?”  
“Last time I was here. When I got that shift, and I was, well… acting scared?”  
“Oh, right…”  
“I’m so sorry I did that! It wasn’t you, I was just… I just got… scared, and I… I didn’t even realize it was you! Honestly, if I knew what I was doing… I would never have been afraid of you! Everything was just so huge so suddenly, and then the first thing I saw was, well… you, and my mind just kinda jumped to-”  
“Danger. I get it. It’s fine, really. I knew it was just ‘cause of the spider thing.”  
“So you’re not upset? Is there any way you’d forgive me?”  
“Yeah, whatever. I forgive you.”  
Patton launched himself at Virgil for a quick hug. “Thank you, Virgil!”  
“Yeah, yeah.”  
“Oh, while I’m here, do you need anything?”  
Virgil sighed. “I need to get out of this bed.”  
“Oh, I’ve been meaning to talk to Logan about letting you walk again. He still hasn’t let you try?”  
“No. He says I’m probably ready but he’s been too busy to watch me and he wants someone to watch me, just in case.” Virgil shook his head, clearly frustrated.  
“Well, why don’t you let me go talk to him? I can stay with you!”  
“Can’t promise he’ll let you, but go for it.”  
Patton nodded and rushed out of the room. He went to the lab and found Logan writing on something at the desk, Roman leaning over his shoulder watching him. “Hey, Logan! Are you busy?”  
“Yes.”  
“Oh. Uh, I just needed to ask you something.”  
Logan gestured for Roman to step back and turned around in his chair. “Yes?”  
Patton smiled. “Well, I was just talking to Virgil, and it’s been a long time since the accident… Maybe we could try letting him get up and walk? He’s been off the I.V.’s for a while…”  
“Maybe I will assist him with that tomorrow. I was about to check the progress on Roman’s eardrums, and then he was going to allow me to take a tissue sample. For testing.”  
“Well, I could stay with Virgil and help him.”  
Logan hummed in thought. “I suppose… Although if there is an issue, you may not know the procedure to handle it…”  
“Logan, he’s fine. He hasn’t felt weak lately, you said that yourself. And the cut and stuff are already healing really nice. If he’s acting weak at all then I’ll make sure he stays in the room so he’ll be right by the bed!”  
“Well… I suppose if you watch him closely there shouldn’t be a problem…”  
“So I can help him walk?!”  
Logan hesitated. “Alright. Just alert me if anything goes wrong.”  
“I will! Thanks, Logan!” Patton bounded out of the room, tail bouncing behind him, and ran back to the medical room. “Virgil! He said you can get up!”  
“What, really?! What conditions?!”  
“He just said he wanted me with you! That’s it!”  
“Alright, finally! How do you put these side railings down?”  
“Oh, I got it!” Patton rushed over and unlatched the railings, putting them all down, and finally, he watched as Virgil uncurled his many legs and set a few of them on the floor.  
“Oh, that feels good.” Virgil stretched them all out, then pulled himself to the edge and set the rest of them on the floor, slowly putting pressure on them.  
“Do you need help?”  
“Just gimme a brace for, like, two seconds.”  
Patton grinned and let Virgil grab his shoulders for stability as he slid himself off the bed. His legs gave out for a few seconds and he slowly put pressure on them again until he was standing. He took a moment to steady himself and let go of Patton, leaning forwards on his two shorter legs in the front and experimenting with shifting his weight around. “Is everything feelin’ alright?”  
Virgil nodded, a grin creeping over his face. “Yeah! It feels great!”  
“Yeah? That’s great! Are you ready to try walking a bit?”  
Virgil stepped past Patton without answering, walked a lap around the room, then jogged back to Patton and let out a laugh. “Yes! Finally! Come on, I gotta get outta here!” He went straight into the hallway, wandering in no particular direction, with Patton speed-walking behind, struggling to keep up. Virgil was nearly running as he moved from room to room, grinning like a fool about the fact that he wasn’t on some stupid bed. Finally, he stopped in the living room and spun as Patton stopped as well, panting. “Patton, do you see this?! Ha! See, Logan?! I’m fine! I’ve been ready!”  
“I’m glad you’re excited, but can we slow down a bit?” Patton collapsed onto the couch.  
“Yeah, fine. I do have the advantage in speed.”  
Patton laughed. “Anyone with that many legs would!”  
“Right. So…” Virgil began pacing circles in the middle of the room. “You wanna do something?” He snorted. “As huge as I am right now, imagine if you tried to ride me like some kinda horse. Roman would get a kick outta that.”  
Patton laughed. “Logan would think it was dangerous though.”  
“Yeah, he would. He thinks everything I do is dangerous. I don’t get what his problem is.”  
“Well… he said that position you were in when we got there… it doesn’t just mean you could die if you don’t get help… Usually, once it gets that bad… It means you’re going to die… and there’s not usually a way to stop that. Once spiders are in the death curl, Logan said it’s almost always final. When he saw you like that, he thought you were already gone.”  
“You’re serious?” Patton nodded. “Wow… I mean, I knew it got bad, but… that’s past bad.”  
“Yeah… that’s why he’s been so protective and strict… He was really scared for you.”  
Virgil shook his head slowly. “Even still, he of all people should have known that I’ve long since been ready to be on my feet again. Ugh, speaking of, can we get moving again? You know what, forget it, I’ll be back.” Without waiting for a response, Virgil tore into the hallway, quickly breaking into a full run.  
Patton sighed fondly and got up to follow him.”Virgil!”  
He walked through the halls at random until finally heard some sort of strained gasping and he rushed towards it. He gasped and his heart rate picked up so suddenly that it caused a shift, which turned him completely into a pitbull. He ran forwards, whining softly as he nuzzled Virgil’s shorter two legs.  
Virgil was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, gasping raspily, sweating.  
Patton whined again, ears going flat. Virgil kept struggling for breath. He had to do something. He needed help. He needed to get help. He whined once more and nuzzled Virgil before bounding off towards the lab.  
He skidded to stop near Logan and Roman, barking wildly. Logan looked down. “Is it Virgil?!” Patton barked in answer and ran out, Logan and Roman following close behind.  
Logan dropped to his knees in front of Virgil and immediately began talking to him, running him through breathing techniques, telling him to relax and give in to the exhaustion, etc. Patton laid nearby, watching him, whining softly occasionally while Roman sat beside him, watching nervously, rubbing Patton’s head every so often.  
Patton had no idea how long it had taken, but eventually, Virgil was mostly asleep, leaning against Logan, who was hugging him with one arm and gently rubbing his back. Logan sighed and glanced down at Patton. He whispered softly, careful to pay attention to Virgil and make sure he was still falling asleep. “This is why I was concerned… I was afraid he might react this way. He got too eager and pushed himself far too much far too fast, causing his body to crash. He wasn’t ready for that much movement…”  
Patton slowly got up and stepped over to Logan, where he whined and nudged his hand to get his attention before curling up and laying his head on Logan’s leg. “Patton, he will be okay. If you are feeling guilty, then rest assured in the fact that he likely would have reacted the exact same way no matter what he was told or who he was with. There was nothing you could have done to change his mind. Besides, he will be fine, he’ll simply need a bit of extra sleep and much more bedrest.”  
Patton looked up at him and whined. “Don’t worry, I'll let him get up occasionally, but he won’t be leaving the room for a while and he’ll only be on his feet when I am in there and can watch him.”  
Patton huffed dramatically and dropped his head back onto Logan’s leg. Logan sighed and looked up from Patton to see Roman staring at him, looking worried. “Well?! Is he okay?!” Logan forced a smile and nodded in answer, and Roman sighed and nodded back, relief flooding his features. “Okay…”


End file.
